


In the Hearts of Kings

by Caly_X



Series: Sword and Scales [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Action, Angst, Gen, Intrigue, Post-Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-06 06:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21222041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caly_X/pseuds/Caly_X
Summary: "I thought you weren't like Dettlaff. I thought you were cool-headed, logical, compassionate. I thought you would—" Syanna's face briefly contorted in a fleeting grimace— "forgive me.""It's easy for you to talk about forgiveness when you've already avenged yourself on your enemies," Regis said without looking at her.Syanna's disappearance while on a hunting excursion occasions rumors and foments unrest in Toussaint. The loyalties of many at court, including that of the duchess Anna Henrietta herself, are tested. And Regis, whose path has unwittingly become intertwined with Syanna's once more, must confront a side of himself that he is shocked to discover even exists.Sequel to "The Sword of Themis"





	1. ...were it not that I have bad dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I hope someone will have fun figuring out the sources of the chapter titles and their relevance to the content!

I know these ruins. Of course; how could I not have recognized them before? I'm at Tesham Mutna. I spot a discarded ribbon on the ground. I look up. There are two figures a hundred paces away. I recognize the standing one: it's Themis. Hello, Themis, I say in my mind, how statuesque you look tonight. She is holding her scales, she is holding her sword aloft, she is blindfolded. The figure at her feet, thankfully, I do not immediately recognize.

I approach Themis and the other figure. I should know better than to approach Themis when she is holding her sword and expecting me, but I approach anyway.

The figure on the ground is a woman. She is frozen in an attitude of fear, with one hand shielding her face from Themis's blind stare and her body curled up like a hedgehog to protect her vital organs from the threatening sword. Neither moves; both remain perfectly statue-like and still as I circle around them and draw near.

When I peer more closely at the woman's face I realize, with a twinge of displeasure deep in my gut, that it is Syanna.

I remember how well Themis's sword fit my hand before. Perhaps it still does. I take it from her hand; she doesn't resist. I position myself over Syanna, sword held aloft just like Themis was holding it before. Syanna does not react at all, nor does Themis. She remains in the cringing position that I do not feel sorry to see her in.

The palm of my sword hand is slick with sweat.

* * *

Regis hit the back of his head against the tree trunk as he woke up from his dream with a start. The tree responded to the unprovoked assault by dumping its last autumnal leaves on Regis. He firmly told himself to stop falling asleep while leaning against trees. The sky was darkening and a strong and cold breeze was blowing. He got up, walked over to the opening of a small cave nearby, and peered inside. Then he stooped and entered, taking off his black woollen cloak as he did so. He gently laid the cloak over Syanna.

He crouched down and observed her closely. She was lying on a makeshift raised platform built out of sticks and covered with anything soft that Regis had been able to find on the forest floor. The fresh bandages on her upper chest, which were just visible under the three open buttons on her doublet, were dry. Her cheeks had lost their feverish tinge. He put a hand on her wrist to check her pulse. Her eyes opened.

She wrenched her wrist from his grip. Her hand immediately went to her bandaged chest. "You touched me," she said. Her voice was hoarse from dryness and lack of recent use, but it was still fully capable of expressing indignation and anger.

"I did not," Regis said. His voice was also capable of expressing a full range of emotion, but he was careful to not let it express anything at this moment.

"Bandages," she rasped. "How did you put these bandages on me?"

"Dispassionately. Mechanically." He rose from her side and looked down his aquiline nose at her. "Exactly how I've bandaged a thousand wounds before yours."

She returned his impassive stare. "Aren't you going to tell me what happened?"

* * *

Regis had ducked into the small cave as soon as he had heard the thundering of horses' hooves in the distance. He wanted to avoid any unnecessary trouble on his journey south to relative safety in Vicovaro. He listened. There was one horse; no, two. The rapid beating of hooves was punctuated by an occasional loud oath in a gruff male voice. As the sounds grew louder and closer, a woman's voice rendering curses for curses became clearly audible.

The woman's voice drew Regis out of the cave. He saw a man in hunting attire pursuing the woman. The silhouettes of more horses and their riders in the distance grew ever larger and more distinct.

The man was nearly upon the woman. Regis saw her face. It was Sylvia Anna, the sister of the duchess of Toussaint, Anna Henrietta, whom she had once plotted to kill. It was Rhenawedd, the one-time lover of Dettlaff, whom she had turned into the Beast of Beauclair. The man swung a blade at her; the blade, more flat-on than edge-on, struck her across the shoulders. Her spaulders clanked as they caught the brunt of the blow. She slipped off her saddle.

_I swear that not a hair on her head will come to harm_, Regis dimly recalled saying once. His blood seemed to boil in his veins and he leapt into the fray like one possessed. When he came to himself again, all that was left were two dead horses, a trail of blood mingled with a mess of hoofmarks leading away from the cave, and Syanna's unconscious body.

So much for avoiding unnecessary trouble, Regis thought to himself.

* * *

"So how long have I been here?" Syanna said.

"A week."

She propped herself up on her elbows. "A week? It can't be."

Regis exhaled through his nose. "It can. It has been."

"I must get back to Toussaint." She carefully got off the raised platform and looked around the small cave to try and locate her possessions, not grasping that they had been lost with her horse and her pursuers a week ago. All she had left were the clothes on her back. There was nothing else in the cave except for a skin of water, some foraged nuts and berries, and a small metal pot that smelled strongly of herbs.

Regis stared at her, as if expecting her to say something else.

She noticed. She swallowed. "Thank you."

"Hm," he allowed himself to grunt in response.

* * *

"Surely Her Grace will ask the Honorable Fringilla Vigo to take up the role of Second Beauty alongside her at this year's Festival of the Vat," said one middle-aged lady in a green dress to another. They were each secretly horrified that the other was wearing the exact same shade of green, and so they were endeavoring to cover their embarrassment by engaging in small talk in the hall, which was chock-full of courtiers waiting for the duchess to arrive.

The second lady fanned herself coquettishly with a folding fan made of paper and wood strips with elaborate cut-out patterns. "I would be the last to dispute that Madam Vigo is a beauty of a, hem-hem, very unique and particular sort, but after her involvement with the Lodge of Sorceresses and... hem-hem, surely it would appear less than seemly to Nilfgaard if the duchess were to give such an honor to Madam Vigo after the Imperator had, after all—" her voice dropped to a whisper— "_imprisoned_ her, though he did release her in the end."

"His Imperial Majesty has more on his mind than Madam Vigo at the moment, I am sure," the first lady responded. "The hearts of kings are not always occupied with ladies. They are often occupied overwhelmingly with matters of state, which, strange though it may seem to us Toussaintois, probably does not include who gets to be one of the Beauties at our Festival of the Vat. In any case, what other contender could there be to fulfill the duties of the second Beauty?"

The fan-wielding lady hid her mouth behind her fan. "The one whom, hem-hem, the duchess herself has proposed, of course."

"Her sister?" The fanless lady pursed her lips. "Surely Her Grace was not serious about that proposal. She must know how we feel about Sylvia Anna."

"How should she know, when all you do is whisper secretly behind her back about Lady Sylvia Anna?" A third woman in a green dress joined the pair. This one had a magnificent ruby necklace adorning her neckline, but since she was gravitating towards the pair, it was evident that she was also secretly horrified that her dress color was not one of a kind. "Pardon me, but you were not there at the duchess's reconciliation with her sister; I was. It was a sight to behold. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than reconciliation. How they forgave each other! Oh! There was nary a dry eye..."

"Reconciliation, indeed, but at what cost?" the fanless and rubyless lady said. "Since the terrible events of the Night of Long Fangs, which Sylvia Anna precipitated, she has merely suffered, or rather enjoyed, a year of house arrest and is now gone on some hunting expedition. It has become increasingly clear to the court that Her Grace's heart is with her sister and not with the people of Toussaint."

The lady with the fan fanned herself furiously.

"Clear to the court? You may speak for yourself," the bejeweled lady sniffed.

"I think Vivienne de Tabris may be a contender for the role of Second Beauty," the lady with the fan said, in an effort to make the talk smaller.

"Vivienne de Tabris, whose fiance is Guillaume de Launfal, the nephew of Baron Palmerin de Launfal? You seem to have forgotten that the baron is not currently in favor with Her Grace, since he has dared to try to warn her about the danger of keeping her sister close to her like a viper in her bosom. All our brave knights love Her Enlightened Ladyship to a fault, and no one more than Palmerin, but you see how she treats him now." The first lady turned to the lady with the necklace. "So, you see, I speak not just for myself, but also for the baron, as well as for many other courtiers who are also concerned for the welfare of the duchess herself as much as for the duchy."

The fan snapped shut and flared open and danced in the other lady's hand. "Might not these, hem-hem, matters be something more suitable for the ministers to discuss? After all, they have the authority... hem... Minister Tremblay, for instance, is the Minister for Justice and could surely unearth some ancient law about what could be done with Her Grace's sister, but he does nothing. So perhaps there is nothing to be done."

"You've not noticed the young Tristan du Chemin, then? He's been very active in this regard," replied the lady who spoke for Palmerin and, apparently, half the court. "He was the one who quite creatively attempted to matchmake Her Grace's sister with that nobleman from Nilfgaard in the hope that she would be whisked away to the Empire. Who knew that Sylvia Anna would be so insulted—and insulting?"

"_He_ was behind that disaster? Oh my. The things newcomers will do for attention," sighed the fan-lady. The bejeweled lady just glared.

At this moment the hall fell silent. "Her Enlightened Ladyship Duchess Anna Henrietta," a voice announced. The duchess descended to the hall upon marble steps, resplendent in a dress elaborately dotted with small pearls and embroidered with a pattern of lilies. The dress was just the right shade to set off her painstakingly coiffed chestnut hair: it was green.

Anna Henrietta regally waved a hand to stop the waves of bowing and deferent murmurs of "Long live Your Enlightened Ladyship!" from the courtiers. She spoke: "It is our pleasure to announce today that the role of Second Beauty at the upcoming Festival of the Vat will be played by our lady-in-waiting, Lady Vivienne de Tabris."

A suppressed buzz of confused excitement enlivened the hall. Vivienne, a young lady with bright blonde hair cascading far past her shoulders, did not smile—she was too perfectly schooled in courtly manners and was also of somber mien by nature—but simply curtseyed to acknowledge the great honor that had befallen her. Her fiance, Guillaume, a young knight errant with blond hair that just reached his shoulders, beamed radiantly at her from across the hall.

"We have the highest confidence that Lady Vivienne will execute her duties well and bring joy to the hearts of the people of Toussaint on the day of this happy festival," the duchess continued. "Though our heart is pained that our sister, Lady Sylvia Anna, has been delayed in her return from her expedition..."

"Delayed in her return, eh? You know what I think, Tristan: Sylvia Anna must have taken the opportunity to escape," murmured one courtier to a handsome young man in his twenties. The young man, Tristan du Chemin, wore his black hair in the fashionable "queen's pageboy" cut, but otherwise looked very serious in his dark blue doublet. He looked even more serious upon hearing the other courtier's comment.

"She won't escape," Tristan quietly replied. He stepped forward to seek an audience with the duchess. The duchess gestured to permit him to speak. "Your Enlightened Ladyship," he said, loudly this time, "I have unfortunate news for Your Grace and, indeed, for all of Toussaint. Just before I arrived at court, the hunting company that Lady Sylvia Anna set out with returned."

"That is not unfortunate news, our dear Sir Tristan," Anna Henrietta interrupted. "We have long awaited her return."

"They returned without her, Your Enlightened Ladyship." Tristan hurried to continue before Anna Henrietta could get a word of surprise or anger in: "One of them was half dead by the time he arrived and has been sent to the hospital. Two of them were less severely wounded and are recuperating in the infirmary."

The duchess clasped her hands together and twisted them. "Sir Tristan! What are you saying? Has our sister fallen prey to some misfortune?"

"Your Enlightened Ladyship, it pains me to say this, but the expedition's members swear that Lady Sylvia Anna set a vicious vampire on them in broad daylight unprovoked..."

The buzz in the hall burst into an uproar punctuated with hysterical screams. "She seeks to harm our beloved duchess!" "'Pon my word, the Curse of the Black Sun has manifested yet again!" "I swear on the heron!..." "Vampires! Oh, Beauclair! Vampires!!"

The duchess turned red, then white, then somewhat green, like her dress. She gripped the balustrade of the marble steps with one hand to steady herself. Vivienne, seeing this, silently went out of the hall and came back with the captain of the Ducal Guard, Damien de la Tour. He barked some words that got the hall of courtiers to quiet down, but the duchess did not hear what he said. Neither did she hear the soothing whispers of Vivienne and Damien as they conveyed her back to her private chambers.


	2. To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks

Syanna looked back to see that Regis was still following her. She narrowed her eyes and stared daggers at him. She wished that she had an actual dagger. She turned her back on him again and continued walking through the forest.

Regis, for his part, knew that it would be more appropriate to ask, "Where are you going?" But he did not feel like saying anything to her. So he continued to walk behind her.

The forest floor was a muted, muddy yellowish brown. Bare branches waved above and generously let through slanting rays of morning sunlight and gusts of cold wind. When, after a night of fitful sleep, Syanna had woken up before dawn, Regis had been nowhere in sight. She had eaten up the berries and nuts that were in the cave, taken the skin of water, and simply left. She had set her sights on the mountains in the distance, beyond which lay Toussaint. Regis had somehow appeared twenty paces behind her about ten minutes after that. After an hour of walking, Regis remained no farther from her, and, to Syanna's greater frustration, the mountains seemed no closer.

"Leave me alone," she finally snapped.

"Surely you don't mean to walk all the way to Toussaint by yourself," Regis said calmly. "You've just eaten a meager breakfast, but it won't sustain you for the length of a foot journey back there. You have a skin of water, but it'll run out soon; I filled it for a vampire's needs, not a human's."

Syanna scowled, even though Regis couldn't see her face. She knew he was right, and so she surprised herself with her reply: "You seem to have forgotten that I've lived by my wits and by my sword for most of my life. I'll make it back to Toussaint by myself. I don't need you. Make yourself scarce, vampire."

"I'm only too glad to," Regis said, just as calmly as before, "bearing in mind the adage that those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Farewell, Syanna."

With that, the vampire disappeared.

Syanna pulled the warm black woollen cloak more tightly around herself and continued walking towards the stubbornly unmoving mountains.

* * *

"Summon Captain de la Tour," the duchess said to one of the guardsmen by the door as she entered her study. The guardsman nodded as much as his helmet would allow and stiffly clink-clanked his way down the corridor in full armor. Noting how the noise echoed unpleasantly off the wood panelling on the walls, Anna Henrietta briefly considered changing the uniform of the ducal guard, at least while they were on duty indoors. The courtiers had insisted on surrounding her with more guards since du Chemin's ill-timed announcement about the hunting company's return.

She sat down at her writing desk and picked up the stack of documents awaiting her perusal. As always, they had to do with the social and ceremonial functions of her position as head of state. Policy decisions were largely left to the ministers. Although she did take special interest in some affairs from time to time, she preferred to not be completely abreast of everything. This made her seem foolish and flighty to some, she knew, but it helped her keep her good cheer. What Toussaint needed to see was a benevolent, smiling ruler. And if she remained ignorant of unhappier things, Toussaint would likewise remain in its perpetual state of fairytale bliss.

Or so she had believed, once upon a time. Unfortunately, she was not able to remain ignorant of the current allegations concerning her sister.

The unbearable sound of jangling armor told Anna Henrietta that the guardsman was returning with the captain. She did not wait for someone to announce him but went to the door herself.

"Your Enlightened Ladyship," the captain said with a deep bow. The duchess was pleased to see that he was not wearing anything that could jangle.

"Come in, Captain," Anna Henrietta said. "Shut the door behind you."

He did as he was asked.

"And dispense with the titles, Damien," she said. "We are speaking in private now."

"As you wish, my lady. How may I be of service?" he asked, still standing by the closed door.

"First, sit down," she commanded. "Not in the wooden chair; in that armchair, near the fireplace. Pour yourself some Erveluce. I can tell that you are nervous today."

Damien mutely poured himself a glass of Erveluce from a crystal decanter and sat down in the armchair indicated to him.

Anna Henrietta took the armchair opposite him. "You are nervous," she repeated, "because you have something to tell me, but you are worried that I will not take it well. Have you so little confidence in me? Tell me now what is on your mind. You are concerned about the allegations about Syanna, are you not?"

"Not only I," he said, "but all of Beauclair, and, dare I say, all of Toussaint."

"Tell me what they are saying," she said.

Damien put down his untouched glass of wine and fixed his penetrating gaze on Anna Henrietta. "They say that Lady Sylvia Anna wishes to cause harm to you and the duchy. That she is hiding beyond the mountain passes now because she was found out. That she has been biding her time to rebuild her connections and find another monster to terrorize the city and the duchy, and now she has found one."

"Very well. Tell me what you think," she said.

"I think these are serious allegations to be taken seriously," Damien began.

"No!" Anna Henrietta interjected. "I know Syanna. Better than ever, now that we have finally reunited. She cannot possibly be plotting..." The duchess allowed her words to trail off, realizing that she was confirming the captain's largely justified worries about how she would react to his words.

"I merely say that the allegations are to be taken seriously; men are still innocent until proven guilty," Damien continued after a pause. "I would like to open an investigation into the matter, to see if there is any truth to the allegations."

"I believe our priority should be to find Syanna," Anna Henrietta replied stiffly.

The captain rested an elbow on the armrest of his chair and brought his hand to his face to rest his cheek on his palm. This action brought the duchess's attention to the long, deep gouges covering half his face and to his mangled right ear, which was missing a good chunk of flesh. She had grown used to the scars that he had received while defending the city of Beauclair from the vampires' attack during the Night of Long Fangs, but right now, for some reason, the sight of them made her spine tingle.

"The allegations are serious," he repeated, "and to be taken seriously, especially since the court and the citizens of this duchy already believe them to be true, considering past events. Yes, Lady Sylvia Anna has comported herself acceptably since her return, but the duchy is still suffering from the consequences of her actions. First of all, four men were killed for their alleged crimes without due process—"

"You don't have to remind me," the duchess interrupted.

"And that shakes the confidence of the people in the courts," Damien pressed on. "Second, the human cost of the vampires' attack on the city, which, while not intended by Lady Sylvia Anna, was still the result of her rash actions, is fresh in the mind of the people. Many of my men lost not only their brothers in arms, but also their family. Parents, wives, children. Third, the economic fallout of losing so many people—"

"You have grown bold, Captain," Anna Henrietta said with an edge to her voice. "I remind you that you are not the minister of justice or the minister of finance, but a soldier. One I prize highly, true, but that may change at any moment."

Damien bowed his head and stood up.

"Leave and close the door behind you," the duchess said.

He did as he was asked.

* * *

Syanna took just a few sips from the skin of water and sealed it up again. She stopped, sat down under a tree, and looked around. It was now just past noon, judging by the shadows. She wondered what she would do next, now that she had gotten Regis off her back. Being followed by him was not merely irritating but also intimidating; she felt very vulnerable in the presence of a being that had the appearance of a harmless old man but was capable of single-handedly fighting off an entire company of armed huntsmen. Also, he had clearly grown no fonder of her since he had last encountered her in Toussaint. So why had he been following her?

As she listened to her own breathing in the quiet, still forest, she couldn't shake the feeling that, somehow, he was still following her.

"Show yourself," she called out, just in case.

Regis appeared. She jumped up and put the tree between herself and him.

"You," she said, not taking her eyes off of him. "You mean to kill me yourself. Why else would you be following me after saving me and letting me go?"

The expression on his face was inscrutable. "Well, well," he said slowly. "That's an idea. Perhaps I do mean to kill you."

Icy fear gripped Syanna's heart, just as it had when Dettlaff had suddenly raised his hand to strike her at Tesham Mutna. "I... I thought you were a gentleman," she said, her voice faltering. There was no magic ribbon to save her now.

"I," he said, "am a vampire." He smiled widely, gruesomely, hideously.

Syanna let out a choked cry. Quite contrary to Regis's expectations, it was not a cry of horror, but a stifled laugh. The corners of Syanna's mouth suddenly turned down and, even more contrary to Regis's expectations, she blinked away a few tears.

"Come now," he said, dropping his fanged grin, "I don't... I didn't... I will leave you alone now." He turned to go.

"No, don't leave," Syanna said. She laughed again even as tears continued to escape her eyes.

"I can see I've caused you distress, for which I apologize, but you're also laughing. If there is some sort of joke here, it's beyond me," Regis said.

Syanna brought her laughter under control and brushed her sleeve against her wet cheek. "Did Dettlaff ever tell you how we met? He jumped out at me, baring his fangs to scare me away..."

Regis simply looked glumly at her.

"Why are you still following me, vampire?" Syanna asked. "If you do not mean to kill me, that is."

"You took my cloak," Regis said.

Syanna gave him a queer look and started moving towards the mountains again, making no move to give up the cloak. Regis followed her.

* * *

"Another minor nobleman from Nilfgaard?" Anna Henrietta said with a twitch of her pointy nose. "Is this Sir Tristan's doing yet again?"

Chamberlain Le Goff shuffled his feet. "Your Grace, Lord Bressal Liddertal comes of his own accord, I believe. He is enamored of the rich traditions of Toussaint; after all, here tradition is sacred. And he is most eager to attend the most traditional of our traditions: the Festival of the Vat."

"So let him attend it," she replied distractedly.

"He would very much like to meet Your Grace," Le Goff added.

The duchess's mind was clearly elsewhere. She waved a hand. "I will see him the morning of the preparations for the Festival. Now send in Captain de la Tour."

The chamberlain bowed and scurried out the door of the audience chamber. Damien de la Tour entered.

"Captain," the duchess said as soon as he came in, "you will begin an investigation into the allegations against Lady Sylvia Anna, not only for the sake of the safety of the duchy, but also for the sake of respecting due process and the rule of law in Toussaint."

The captain nodded.

"You are dismissed," Anna Henrietta said to the functionaries and guards still aimlessly hanging around in the chamber, having allowed them to hear as much as she wanted them to hear so that the appropriate gossip could spread around the court. After they left, she continued: "And we will ask the witcher to seek Syanna out. After all, he did succeed the last time. So, now, we can both get what we want. Does that make you happy, Damien?"

Damien, to his credit, neither confirmed nor denied this. "Your Grace—"

"We are alone, Damien. No titles."

"—the witcher is currently away from Corvo Bianco. He travelled to Novigrad on personal business. I called on him not long ago and was told that he is on his way back, though when he will arrive is unclear, since he had to stay in Novigrad longer than anticipated to recover from some injuries."

"That is most unfortunate," Anna Henrietta said, clicking her tongue.

"Yes. I thought that Geralt was retired from monster-hunting, but I suppose there are other ways to sustain injuries," Damien said.

"He is _semi_-retired," Anna Henrietta said, "and, besides, I was talking about finding Syanna."

"Perhaps the knights errant would appreciate the challenge," he suggested.

"Perhaps," she said, "but also perhaps not; despite what the courtiers think, I am quite aware of the hostility of some of my own knights towards Syanna. Palmerin, for example..."

"His friend Sir Milton was killed by the Beast of Beauclair," the captain said.

"And so I can hardly blame him for taking a dim view of Syanna?" the duchess responded with a surprising lack of iciness in her voice. "Believe it or not, Damien, I understand. Friends are loyal to each other, are they not? But he can then hardly blame me for standing by my own sister when no-one else will."

"Indeed," Damien concurred. "In any case, in the course of my investigation I will speak to the hunting party, and they may be able to help us decide where to send a search party. It has been so long since they parted ways with Sylvia Anna, however, that if she had intended to return to Toussaint, she should have long since reached the mountain passes by now."

Damien silently contemplated the possibility of Syanna being dead. Anna Henrietta silently contemplated an even worse possibility: that Syanna was unwilling to return home.

"Nevertheless," Damien continued, "I will do my utmost to conduct a fair and thorough investigation."

"You do understand that this investigation falls outside of Minister Tremblay's purview," Anna Henrietta said. "Not that I do not think him a capable man, but... I think you are much more capable. And I trust you, Damien."

The captain's one-and-a-half ears turned red.

"Damien," the duchess said, almost as an afterthought, "I have no Youth to accompany me for the Festival." She gazed at him from under lowered lashes.

"Your Grace will surely find one," the captain said, "as Your Grace does every year."

Anna Henrietta arched an eyebrow and sighed.

* * *

"Why are you out here, so far from Toussaint?" Regis asked.

Syanna turned around. Yes, the vampire was still there, and he was even talking. She was tired and did not wish to talk, but she felt compelled to reply. "I wanted to get out of there, stretch my legs on a little hunt. I was born in a palace, but I'm not used to being confined in one anymore. Besides, I wanted to help Anarietta."

"Help?" Regis sounded skeptical. "By going away?"

"Out of sight, out of mind," Syanna said. "For the court, anyway. Some are opposed to me having my title and birthright restored. Anarietta has offended them by being loyal to me, her own sister. The nerve of—"

"I can imagine," Regis interrupted, "that they view her familial loyalty as treason to the interests of the duchy. And I can understand why, given that you came back to claim your title and your birthright in the duchy after having four men killed without trial. You've faced no consequences for that."

Syanna shot him a cold look. "Besides house arrest, I think that the attempt on my life was a consequence."

Regis sighed. "There's some adage about a sword that may apply in your situation, Syanna."

They walked on in silence for a little while longer.

"Speak true this time, vampire. Why are you following me?" Syanna eventually asked, without looking back. Her voice was bitter.

"I once swore to Geralt that not a hair on your head would come to harm," Regis replied. His voice was just as bitter.


	3. My kingdom for a horse

It was the day before the Festival of the Vat, which heralded the conclusion of the grape harvest in October and the beginning of the process of making wine from the season's grapes. The weather was supposed to be good, in the sense that it was supposed to be sunny on the day of the Festival, but it was already frightfully cold for October. Anna Henrietta was searching for the warmest scarlet cape she could find in her closet and hoping that the tailors had similar material to make a matching one for Vivienne. A lady with short black hair accompanied her as she made her way through a veritable hedge maze of clothes on racks and shelves.

"Fringilla, are you absolutely sure you can't take my place at the Festival this year?" Anna Henrietta asked her companion as she ran her hands over a rack of cloaks and capes, trying to recognize the sought-for garment by touch.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but I have no desire to. And even if I did, what would people think if their beloved duchess skipped the Festival?" Fringilla Vigo replied.

"You know I was not being entirely serious," the duchess said with a small smile, "but then again... Somehow they've managed to foist this Nilfgaardian baron or somesuch on me—Bressal Liddertal—to act as my Youth. I only just saw him this morning. Do you know anything about him?"

Fringilla joined in the search for the scarlet cape by systematically flipping through the hanging garments. "Besides the fact that he's devilishly handsome?"

"He's a dandy and a fop. Not quite to my taste."

"Really?" Fringilla hid her smile behind a cornflower blue cape. "Well, other than that, I know only that the Liddertals are distant relations of the Congreves. And they are not Nilfgaardians in the strict sense of the word, that is, they are not from the capital of the empire."

"So, a provincial dandy and fop," the duchess said, sighing.

"You could say that," Fringilla said with a shrug.

The duchess abandoned the rack and wandered off to a pile of folded garments. "So if I snub him, our cousin Emhyr will not be displeased, will he?"

Fringilla followed her. "I doubt he'd even notice. I imagine he has other things on his mind."

"Good, because I have other things on my mind as well," Anna Henrietta said, stroking the garments with an absent air. "Syanna, as you know—"

"Anarietta," Fringilla said, seeing where the conversation was going, "I am not your court mage."

"You could have been if you'd made your profession known before you joined the Lodge; although we should have guessed, what with Artorius being your uncle. But I am not ordering you to do something as your liege. I am asking you as a relative. And a friend." Anna Henrietta looked hopefully at her.

Fringilla sighed. "She will be difficult to find."

"I know." The duchess sat down on the pile of garments. "Damien is investigating the ridiculous allegations against her, and in the course of doing so he will, of course, try to find her, but I just want to know I've done all I can, that I've done right by her. You remember when she was first banished by our parents..."

"I remember," Fringilla said somberly.

"You shall have access to her chambers for anything you may need to assist you in your search," Anna Henrietta added, although she was not quite sure what a sorceress might need in order to look for a missing person.

"Anarietta," Fringilla said with a slight frown, "I am not sure you should so openly display your trust in me."

"Because Emhyr, our idiot cousin, thought you a threat? This is not Nilfgaard," Anna Henrietta said with a hint of resentment.

"Toussaint is not Nilfgaard, but it _is_ a vassal of Nilfgaard," Fringilla corrected her gently. "Very autonomous, to be sure, even anomalously autonomous, but..."

"Emhyr should have other things on his mind, as you said," Anna Henrietta said.

"True," Fringilla concurred. "I'd like to think he's forgotten all about me and the business with the Lodge. But the court here hasn't. Some still think me a diplomatic liability. Which is, incidentally, why I would rather not appear at the Festival at all this year. And why, if I'm to help you find Syanna, you mustn't let anyone else know. I'd like to remain in Toussaint in relative peace and safety."

"So you'll help?" Anna Henrietta looked hopeful. Fringilla nodded. Anna Henrietta grasped her hands and squeezed them. "Thank you, Fringilla. Thank you." Fringilla could see that a great weight had been lifted off the duchess's shoulders.

"There is someone else who could help," Fringilla ventured to say.

"Who?" Anna Henrietta's blue eyes lit up.

Fringilla cleared her throat. "The one who lives at Corvo Bianco."

A mischievous smile played on Anna Henrietta's lips. "I've already thought of your witcher..."

Fringilla wished to refute Anna Henrietta's choice of words in describing the witcher but also did not want to appear overly invested in or affected by it. Regardless of her wishes, she turned as red as a tomato.

"...but he is away. He will return soon, however."

"Oh. Very good," Fringilla said.

"We will call upon his aid when he returns, if Syanna is not found by then," Anna Henrietta added.

"Very good."

Anna Henrietta spotted the scarlet cape behind Fringilla and gathered it up in her hands. "I will go and see if the tailors can make one like this for Vivienne by tonight," she said.

"Very good."

* * *

Syanna rubbed her cold hands together and pressed them to her face to warm them up. Regis passed her a hot lump of organic matter which she assumed was supposed to be food. He had just dug them up from a firepit, and they were on the road once more.

"If only they'd left me my dagger to hunt with," Syanna said as she eyed the brown object, "or even just to skin this... this... root vegetable. What is it?"

"Just eat it," Regis said as he dusted the ash off a similar blob and took a bite.

Syanna opened her mouth a little and closed it again.

"It's not poisonous," Regis said, not caring to make his tone of voice particularly reassuring. His statement was even less reassuring to Syanna when she recalled that vampires were largely immune to most poisons known to the human race.

She cautiously bit down on it. It was hot. It tasted starchy and bland and mealy.

"I won't be able to accompany you all the way into Toussaint," Regis said after he swallowed his mouthful of mystery vegetable, not without difficulty. "So you won't have to put up with strange food all the way there."

"You won't? Why not?"

"Let's just say I am not very welcome in Toussaint."

"You?" Syanna glanced at Regis sidelong. "There are court ladies who still gush over your scintillating gift of gab based on their conversations with you from some banquet ages ago. Not that I've seen much evidence of that myself, but they do like you there." Syanna blew on the hot vegetable to cool it down. "Though, true, they don't know you're a vampire."

"Hm," Regis said with his mouth full. He remembered his first visit to Toussaint with Geralt and the rest, and his first banquet there. He had rather enjoyed conversing with the courtiers and playfully feeding them misinformation about vampires. He felt somewhat guilty that, consequently, after Beauclair had been attacked by vampires, people actually purchased garlic and silver in the vain hope of warding them off.

"Did you inherit or earn your title?" Syanna asked suddenly.

"Hm?"

"Chamberlain Le Goff told me in strict confidence that you were a count."

"Did he, now?" Regis vaguely remembered Geralt feeding Le Goff that particular bit of misinformation. "Dear child, you are mistaken. I am not a count."

"Don't call me a child," Syanna said with narrowed eyes. "I am not a child. The last time I was, I had to grow up very quickly." She felt the painful memories of her childhood and banishment threatening to resurface. If not for the vampire by her side right now, she would have felt exactly as she had after the four knights had abandoned her after days of abuse and maltreatment, completely alone, with nothing but the clothes on her back.

"Very well," Regis said.

"So you are not a count."

"And you are not a child. That much we have learned."

For a while only the rustling of long-dead leaves under their feet and the mastication of mouthfuls of vegetable of unknown provenance was audible. A light gleaming in the distance between the tree trunks caught Syanna's eye.

"What's that?" Syanna said, pointing the light out to Regis.

Regis looked with his sharp vampire eyes and listened with his keen vampire ears. "Well, what do you know? It's a cottage. With a... hermit. And a horse."

Syanna stuffed the remaining nub of vegetable into a pocket and wiped her hands on the black cloak. Regis, seeing this, wrinkled his nose. "Excellent," Syanna said, turning to walk straight towards the cottage. "We'll make it back in time for—"

"Where are you going?" Regis asked.

"To get a horse," Syanna said, not stopping.

"Have you any money? To buy one?"

"Is that supposed to be a relevant question?" Syanna responded.

Regis broke into a swift stride to catch up with her.

"Of course I don't have any money," Syanna clarified as she quickened her already brisk pace.

"How will you get the horse?" Regis said.

"Don't play the fool," Syanna said with a sneer. "I'll ask for it, of course. And if he refuses, I'll ask again as the sister of the duchess."

"We are beyond the borders of Toussaint," Regis pointed out, "and beyond the duchess's influence."

Syanna rolled her eyes. "Then I'll ask in not such a nice way."

Regis grabbed the trailing end of the black cloak, stopping Syanna in her tracks. "No," he said. "Leave him alone."

Syanna rotated her shoulders in an attempt to break free from Regis's grip, but to no avail. "Let go of me!"

"No," Regis said, standing absolutely still while Syanna struggled. For some reason, she didn't think of simply undoing the clasp of the cloak. "We will not bother the hermit."

"Are you telling me that we are going to _walk_ all the way to Toussaint?" Syanna said in disbelief. "Really?"

"No," Regis said flatly. "Listen. I have a proposal. It will be the full moon soon enough. After midnight during a full moon, I can, well, turn into a giant bat and give you a ride."

Syanna stopped squirming. "You can what?"

"You heard me," Regis said.

"How fast can you go?"

"Very fast. Much faster than a horse."

"I'll hold you to that."

Regis nodded and let go of the cloak. They walked on, and the hermit never knew that he came within a few hundred paces of meeting a duchess's sister and a vampire.

* * *

From within her damask tent Anna Henrietta could hear the frenetic hubbub and happy noises of the crowd that had gathered in the courtyard for the Festival. There were amusing spectacles going on and there was much fun to be had. Good for them, she thought; the people need this sort of thing to keep their spirits up from year to year. It seemed to her, however, that the hubbub was less frenetic and the happy noises less happy than in years past. Given the rumors swirling about the duchy about Syanna, she could not blame the general populace for being a little preoccupied, even at the Festival of the Vat.

She heard three thumps from outside the tent as Chamberlain Le Goff struck the podium with the ceremonial staff. "Hear ye, hear ye," the duchess mouthed along to the enthusiastic cry of the chamberlain. "Yea, yea. Welcome to our ancient custom. May the grape prosper, blah, blah, blah, may the trod grape ferment..." She got up and pulled the scarlet cape tightly around herself, hoping that the wind would not be too brisk in the courtyard.

"Let the Beauties step forward!" the chamberlain cried.

Anna Henrietta blinked as she stepped out into the bright sunlight. Across the courtyard Vivienne de Tabris emerged from a similar tent, wrapped in the exact same cape. Thunderous applause resounded, but a little less thunderously than in years past.

"My beauty," Guillaume de Launfal gushed at Vivienne from twenty paces away.

"Noble Guillaume, we'll have time for this after the Festival," Vivienne said with the slightest hint of a smile on her lips.

Anna Henrietta looked to her left and caught sight of Baron Bressal Liddertal with a fatuous expression on his face, which did not at all suit his classic Nilfgaardian good looks. She immediately searched the cloisters with her eyes for Captain de la Tour.

"Let the Youths step forward!" the chamberlain cried as he struck the ground with his staff.

Guillaume stepped up to Vivienne, and Liddertal stepped up to Anna Henrietta.

"Your Grace, your beauty puts one in mind of a song," he uttered urgently.

"Oh?" Anna Henrietta said with a terse smile.

She and Vivienne simultaneously dropped their capes to cheers and applause. It _was_ cold, especially when one was wearing the white blouses and knickers traditionally donned for the treading of the grapes. Anna Henrietta felt her skin prickle with gooseflesh as Liddertal picked her up. She shivered.

Liddertal gripped her strongly as he carried her to the vat of grapes. To Anna Henrietta's disbelief, he began _singing_.

"Hair the color of chestnuts,  
Eyes the color of... blue,  
A voice as lovely as... fresh nuts,  
Sparks a love that burns so true!"

He would have had a mellifluous singing voice if it weren't so outlandishly nasal.

"Lord Liddertal," Anna Henrietta said in a low voice, "let us leave that for later."

Liddertal, mistaking her tone of voice, smiled. "Let us indeed!" he responded enthusiastically.

Anna Henrietta glanced beseechingly at the captain. He was observing the proceedings from a distance with a poker face, no doubt concentrating on matters of security. She didn't know what she was hoping he would do.

To her great relief, Liddertal finally released her into the vat. She and Vivienne held on to each other's shoulders for support and stomped away on the grapes. Vivienne was clearly enjoying herself, this being the first time she had done anything like it, and she even giggled from time to time. Anna Henrietta couldn't help but enjoy herself a little too, although she stomped more furiously and aggressively than necessary.

When they were done, the Youths helped them out of the vat.

"How lively," Guillaume said, clearly flustered at the sight of Vivienne spattered all over with grape juice. "How vivacious... energetic... excuse me, Vivienne, I'm at a loss for words..."

Vivienne generously granted him a smile.

Liddertal took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

"I am indisposed, baron," Anna Henrietta said quickly, in a tone that could not suggest anything other than a complete lack of interest and enthusiasm.

"Oh," Liddertal said, deflating.

* * *

"Sir Tristan! We are very displeased with your repeated attempts to introduce us to Nilfgaardian nobility," the duchess snarled.

Tristan du Chemin looked very surprised to be singled out in such a manner. "But Your Grace, I—"

"Very displeased," the duchess repeated emphatically.

"But Your Grace, I was not—"

Anna Henrietta ignored du Chemin's protests. "I've told you before that Lady Sylvia Anna did not need to be married off to some count. We are pleased to have her in Beauclair, in _our_ court, not in the court of Nilfgaard. We do not need further matrimonial alliances with the empire, the Imperator being our cousin, after all! I, likewise, have no need of the services of a matchmaker. I am the widow of Duke Raymund, but my right to rule is secure not by marriage but by birth. Why, if I please, I can even enter into a morganatic marriage! And—Minister Tremblay, _what_ is it?"

Victor Tremblay, the minister of justice, withdrew his hesitatingly raised hand and fiddled with the gold chain of office around his shoulders. "Your Grace, if I may..."

"Spit it out, Minister Tremblay."

"I thought we were here to discuss the banquet at which Your Grace would receive my counterpart in the Redanian government."

Anna Henrietta sighed in irritation. She had entered the room, glimpsed Tristan in the corner, and exploded in a fit of pique when she recalled her experience with Bressal Liddertal. "Yes, there will be a banquet on the date you proposed. I do read the documents you send me. Don't you read what I send back?"

Minister Tremblay stammered out a response that nobody heard and excused himself.

Anna Henrietta turned her intimidating glare back on Tristan. "As for you: if you introduce one more foreign nobleman to this court, you will be in disfavor, Sir Tristan."

Tristan bit back another protest, bowed, and excused himself as well.

* * *

"Bressal messed it up very badly, didn't he?"

"I don't understand how he did. The duchess was, after all, inordinately fond of the Viscount de Lettenhove. That was the closest she ever got to marrying after Duke Raymund's death! Liddertal is a poet and a singer too, is he not?"

"Apparently he was not good enough for the duchess."

"That much was clear from her reaction."

"And her reaction tells us what we must do next. The soft approaches have not worked to rein her in. We shall never find a sensible person who will marry our duchess and exert a good influence on her that will exceed the influence of her sister. She has displayed a callous disregard for the rule of law in Toussaint by continuing to put her sister above the interests of the duchy."

"Continuing to...? But it was she who issued the order to investigate the allegations."

"You heard her: she would rather have her sister in this court than in Nilfgaard. She assumes that the investigation will turn up nothing on Sylvia Anna and all she will have to concern herself with is preventing her sister and herself from being married off to suitable noblemen. That is, if Sylvia Anna even returns."

"That did seem like her assumption. If the soft approaches, as you call them, haven't worked, what shall we do next?"

"If our numbers were larger, a coup d'etat would be the next step. But we must think realistically and practically. For the sake of the duchy, we must—"

"You don't mean—"

"It is not necessary to go all the way, you understand? We are mostly fond of her, after all. It's just that since Sylvia Anna came back into the picture..."

"I don't understand. What, if not...?"

"All that is necessary is to incapacitate her. The duchess has no heir and Sylvia Anna remains missing; her legal status is complex, in any case. So Nilfgaard will appoint a regent. And Nilfgaard will appoint one with a firm hand. They need Toussaint as a diplomatic and geographic buffer between themselves and the Northern Kingdoms. They can't risk unrest here, of all places."

"I don't like the sound of this."

"Neither do I, but... Yes, she's dear to the hearts of the people, but she's always been temperamental as anything. What she might do for Sylvia Anna's sake no-one can tell."

"Hm..."

"The upcoming banquet is the best opportunity to, say, slip a little something in her wine. Something that would suggest she has overindulged and taken ill; and then she would simply... not recover."

"That... that could be arranged."

* * *

The campfire crackled. Regis was lying on the ground on one side of the fire and Syanna was standing on the other, wrapped tightly in the black woollen cloak and stamping her feet to keep warm.

"You are quite determined to hold on to my cloak," Regis observed.

"It's unseasonably cold for this time of year." Syanna turned up the lapels of the cloak and nestled her nose in the warm fabric. The cloak was comforting in its warmth, its softness, its largeness—even its smell.

"I've noticed," Regis said. "We need to reach the mountain pass before it snows. Which looks to be soon."

"Having a horse would help."

"We are not having this discussion again."

"You are trying to wear me down and make me die of exhaustion before we reach the mountain pass, aren't you? If you're going to be following me, surely you're supposed to be helping me, not hindering me from—"

"I've already told you, I'll fly you as far and as fast as I can go once the full moon comes."

"I've missed the Festival of the Vat already by now," Syanna said with a petulant pout.

That little pout finally opened the floodgates, and words poured forth freely once more from Regis's mouth.

"You were going to deprive a hermit of his sole means of transportation to attend a festival? I never cease to be astonished at how utterly self-centered you are. You've taken my food, my water, and my cloak. Now I've offered to act as your personal steed, which is, excuse me, somewhat humiliating for a vampire, and all you can do is complain about how you didn't make it back in time to revel and carouse in some festival dedicated to winemaking. How do you live with yourself? Putting yourself first in every single circumstance, even if you have to step over dead bodies to do it? Has your conscience simply suffocated underneath all the dirt you've dragged it through by now?"

Syanna grew redder and redder as Regis spoke. "And is _your_ conscience so very clean, vampire? Pure as the driven snow? Virginal?" she shot back.

"Young lady, I am tired," Regis said, having apparently exhausted his supply of rebukes. "I do not wish to discuss this."

"When Dettlaff told me about his past, he mentioned a certain friend of his named Emiel Regis. So I know what you did in your youth, _Emiel_. And Dettlaff, for all his faults, never sank so low."

"I said that I do not wish to dis—"

"Talk about him!" Syanna's voice suddenly rang out. "You haven't said a word about him. Since you saved me, which I did not ask you to do, you haven't said a single word about your blood brother!"

Regis stubbornly remained mute.

"Talk about him! Why won't you?" Syanna practically yelled. "I have nobody else to talk about him with, except you, and you—and you—"

"And I killed him."

A cricket's chirp filled in the sudden silence.

Syanna blanched. "You? But the witcher was conferred the order of Vitis Vinifera for—"

"A higher vampire can only be killed by another higher vampire," Regis stated blandly, "and yes, it is an unforgivable transgression to kill one of our own kind. That is why I am no longer welcome in Toussaint."

"So, you're the one responsible for his death," Syanna said in a low voice. "And I thought you were trying to help him."

"Yes, I was trying to help him," Regis said, pronouncing each word deliberately, with great effort. "But no, I was not the one responsible for his death. You were."

"But you killed him," Syanna said softly.

Regis stared at her with burning eyes, but he did not refute her words. "Young lady, I am tired," he finally said. "I do not wish to discuss this. Good night." He rolled over and turned his back on Syanna. On the other side of the campfire, Syanna collapsed on the ground, put her head between her knees, and sobbed brokenly.


	4. O limed soul... struggling to be free

Finally, after many nights, I'm back at the ruins. Themis is at my side, Syanna is at my feet, and the sword is in my hand. I feel ready, tense and poised to strike, like an agitated cobra. I'm not sure that I feel anything from Themis, but my senses are overwhelmed by anticipation and I don't care at this moment.

As I pull back my arm to prepare for the downward swing, the sword handle goes soft. I look at my hand: I'm holding Themis's blindfold. I turn to her and the menacing growl that escapes my mouth surprises me. "I don't want the blindfold. I want the sword. Now!"

In the darkness I'm not sure whether Themis even has eyes, but I feel her look at me. I feel her look at me for a long, long time, and I begin to feel self-conscious. I hold on to the blindfold like a fool, although I would rather throw it away.

"It was the scales that you wanted before, was it not?" Themis's lips barely move. Her expression is enigmatic.

She is right, of course. I hang my head in shame...

* * *

Regis opened his eyes and rolled onto his back. The campfire had gone out. He looked up at the sky. It was grey and cloudy. He cast a sidelong glance across the campfire's ashes. Syanna was huddled up under the black woollen cloak, which was glistening with morning dew. She was shivering and awake.

He sat up. The black bundle that was Syanna stirred and scooted away from him. Her eyes, which were shaded under the folds of the cloak wrapped clumsily over her head, were red and puffy.

They stared at each other. Regis felt small, cold, and wet pinpricks on his exposed face and fingers. Tiny snowflakes were falling. They melted into nothing as soon as they touched the ground.

"I don't want to travel with you anymore, vampire," Syanna whispered hoarsely.

"I don't want to travel with you either," Regis said with more than a hint of resentment in his voice.

"Listen, I'm not goading you. I'm too tired. I'm too tired to even go back home." Syanna shrank even further into the folds of the cloak. "Leave me be. I thank you for everything you've done for me here, but last night I... took a good look inside myself. I didn't like what I saw."

Regis wiped a particularly fat snowflake off his nose as he tried to think of something to say. "Any last requests before I leave?" he finally decided to respond.

Syanna lowered her voice to the barest whisper. "I want you to believe me when I say that I'm sorry."

Regis felt the snowmelt gather and trickle down his face. He suddenly understood why Dettlaff had found it so difficult to wrap his head around the concept of love and friendship existing alongside manipulation and betrayal, and how it was possible to see the world as Dettlaff did: in black and white.

"No," Regis said.

The cloak slipped off Syanna's head as she shifted in discomfort. She had clearly not expected this answer from Regis.

"I thought you weren't like Dettlaff. I thought you were cool-headed, logical, compassionate. I thought you would—" Syanna's face briefly contorted in a fleeting grimace— "forgive me."

"It's easy for you to talk about forgiveness when you've already avenged yourself on your enemies," Regis said without looking at her. "To be fair, you couldn't carry out your plan to completion: the final victim-to-be, your sister the duchess, was spared. So, you've forgiven your sister in lieu of killing her?"

Syanna did not respond.

"Perhaps you don't count all the rest as revenge because it wasn't by your own hand—"

"My sister, it turns out," Syanna said with a calmness born of utter resignation, "did not actually need my forgiveness. Unlike the ones whom I forced Dettlaff to kill."

"So, they can lie happy and content in their early graves knowing that you've _forgiven_ them."

"Surely you know what they did to me."

"So, have you forgiven them or not?"

"Like you're trying to tell me, it doesn't matter, because they're dead. It's too late to forgive. And it's too late for me to ask their forgiveness... and to ask for Dettlaff's forgiveness. But it's not too late to ask for your forgiveness." Her voice became simultaneously harsh and vulnerable. "Regis, please, I'm putting aside my pride. Forgive me."

Regis bowed his head and stared at the sparse moss on the ground between his knees.

Syanna sighed. She pulled the cloak back over her head and curled up into a surprisingly small ball on the ground.

"I'm not going to forgive you," Regis said, "and I'm not going to leave you be. I wish I could, but I can't do either of those things."

* * *

"Master Geralt!" An apron-clad figure appeared in the doorway of the house and waved a tea towel enthusiastically.

Geralt dismounted carefully but swiftly, handed Roach's reins to the groom with a quick word of thanks, and practically ran to the door. "Marlene," he said to the smiling old lady, "how have you been?"

"Worried sick about you. Sausage, indeed! That message was not reassuring at all." She paused. "Will I break you if I hug you?"

"You couldn't if you tried," Geralt said, pulling her into a brief but hearty embrace.

Marlene laughed. "Barnabas-Basil is out preparing the estate for the early snows. It seems that you made it back home just in time."

"I did," Geralt said, looking around at the snow that was starting to accumulate on the roofs and trees and ground, giving everything a merry holiday aspect. "I wouldn't have liked to be stranded beyond the mountains in bad weather. If I had relied on the assumption that the snows would come in November, as they usually do, I wouldn't have made it back in time. Yen isn't back yet, is she? If not, at this rate, she won't be wintering in Corvo Bianco."

Marlene shook her head. Geralt felt a sudden pang of loneliness, and then felt ungrateful for feeling lonely when he was finally home. "By the way," Marlene said, interrupting his thoughts, "Captain de la Tour came looking for you a few times while you were away. The last time he did, he said the duchess wanted to see you."

Geralt groaned. He had been looking forward to just resting and doing nothing for at least a month.

"But the duchess can wait," Marlene said firmly. "It's time for lunch."

Geralt brightened up straight away, wiped the soles of his boots on the threshold, and followed Marlene into the house.

* * *

"We welcome you back to Toussaint, Geralt," Anna Henrietta said.

Geralt bowed stiffly, not because he was wearing his scratchy Beauclair doublet which was too tight under the arms, but because he still ached from his adventure in Novigrad and from the long horseback journey back to Toussaint.

"We have summoned you here for an important purpose. No doubt you have heard the news—"

"Couldn't have, just got here," Geralt muttered under his breath.

"—that our sister, Lady Sylvia Anna, has gone missing just outside of Toussaint. We desire that she should be found. To this end, we ask you, Geralt of Rivia, to find her and bring her back."

Geralt sighed surreptitiously through his nose as he contemplated his response. He knew the duchess didn't like to be told no. "Your Grace, I am honored to be considered for this important task. I am, however, still recovering from a very bad fall, and, besides that, it has started snowing early. The only ways in and out of Toussaint are the four mountain passes in the cardinal directions. If she is beyond the passes, which will be blocked by the snow any time now, we will not be able to reach her for at least a month."

"Recovering from a bad fall, you say? We are sorry to hear of it," the duchess said. "But a bad fall from grace would be harder to recover from, we think."

"Fine. But I cannot guarantee success," Geralt said flatly, refusing to overwork his brain any longer in trying to worm his way out of the task. "At least lend me the assistance of Captain de la Tour and his men."

"You have them," she said generously. "He is conducting an investigation into related matters."

Geralt waited for her to elaborate.

"Request a briefing from Captain de la Tour," the duchess said.

* * *

As Geralt strode down the corridor, he met Fringilla Vigo coming the other way. He curtly nodded at her. She curtly nodded at him.

When Geralt reached the end of the corridor, he adjusted the doublet collar around his neck with a stony expression on his face. When Fringilla reached the other end, she made a mental note to make a batch of anti-blushing cream and carry it around with her from now on.

* * *

Geralt found the captain standing on a balcony overlooking the palace gardens. The grounds were covered in a fresh blanket of snow and everything sounded muted around them.

"Captain," Geralt said.

"Witcher," Damien said.

They shook hands.

"Her Grace told me to come to you for a briefing about Syanna," Geralt said.

Damien sighed. Geralt knew from the sigh that the briefing would not be very brief, so he buttoned his coat up to his neck. It was getting chilly. Damien had evidently already been standing out here for a long time already; the lapels of his military greatcoat were turned up and he was wearing a hat covered with a dusting of snow, although the snow had stopped falling some time ago.

"What has she told you already?" Damien asked.

"Just that Syanna went missing somewhere beyond Toussaint," Geralt replied, "and that you are investigating something related to that."

"I'll lay out what I know," Damien said matter-of-factly. "Sylvia Anna went on a hunting trip. The hunting company returned without her. Three were wounded, one critically so. They have recovered just enough that I will be able to interview them very soon. They allege that Sylvia Anna attacked them with a vampire."

Geralt raised his eyebrows.

"This allegation has mushroomed into a tangled web of accusations, such as that Sylvia Anna is plotting to, say, assassinate the duchess and wreak havoc on Toussaint with the assistance of vampires."

The Night of Long Fangs sprang to mind, although it was Dettlaff who had commanded the vampires to attack Beauclair. Geralt grimaced slightly as he recalled the carnage that resulted from the rampage of vampires across the city.

"Sylvia Anna remains missing, so we only have the account of the huntsmen to go on. Your assistance will be critical, witcher, if we are to ascertain whether these allegations have any truth to them. We need to find her and talk to her."

"What do you think happened?" Geralt asked.

"What I think is not important," Damien replied. "We need to investigate."

"What have you found so far?"

Damien looked out over the grounds. "A morass of competing agendas and high-handed political maneuvering in the name of the good of the duchy."

"More precisely?"

"Insubordination."

"Less laconically?"

Damien frowned at Geralt. "I am not in the mood for word games, Geralt."

"Neither am I. Lay it out plainly," Geralt said.

"It's all been a mess since Sylvia Anna came back into the picture. She's obviously a polarizing figure in the court. Everyone is devoted to Her Grace, of course, but how they feel about her sister varies. I, for my part, trust Her Grace's judgment. Sylvia Anna is her sister, after all. And we two, witcher, saw what went on between them when they finally reconciled. We heard what they said to each other and saw their expressions and body language. I hope I am a somewhat capable judge of character and motivations; I think Sylvia Anna truly turned over a new leaf that day, even if she retains the less pleasant aspects of her personality. Therefore I doubt that Sylvia Anna is intending to assassinate her sister; she's certainly had many chances, especially since her house arrest ended. I am inclined to think that the huntsmen were irresponsible, encountered some misfortune and sustained some injuries, and lost Sylvia Anna. Then they made up this cock-and-bull story..."

"Damien, you were talking about insubordination?"

"Ah." Damien inhaled noisily through his nostrils. "Yes. Some feel that Her Grace needs to be protected from the malign influence of her sister. Some feel that Her Grace has not acted appropriately in not allowing Sylvia Anna to be punished to the full extent of the law. Of course, she has the authority to pardon criminals as she wishes, so legally there is no problem. To a Toussaintois that has suffered the consequences of Sylvia Anna's crimes, however, such mercy is not exactly palatable. Palmerin, for one, voiced his dissatisfaction with Sylvia Anna. You can imagine the duchess's response to that. But that is not insubordination. The insubordination I have in mind is the following: Tristan du Chemin, whom I don't think you've met, attempted to remove Sylvia Anna from the court by trying to matchmake her with a Nilfgaardian nobleman. Someone else—for I don't think du Chemin dared to try a second time—tried to matchmake Anna Henrietta herself with another Nilfgaardian nobleman, no doubt to try to temper her influence." Damien scowled.

"Anyway," Damien resumed after a brief pause, "I hope you can help, witcher. I hope you can find Sylvia Anna alive." He laid a palm on the railing. The fluffy, fresh snow softly crushed into a flat, thin layer under his hand. "That is my hope, and that of the duchess. But time is running out."

Geralt stared at the white gardens alongside Damien. "You are both very hopeful. It hasn't occurred to you that Syanna was intentionally abandoned or even murdered?"

"It has," Damien said. "But again, it doesn't matter what I think right now. I will think after I investigate."

* * *

Geralt tramped his way through the woods surrounding his estate, looking for a raven roost. He found a large number of ravens congregated around a large bovine carcass. "Anyone here speak Common?" he asked. "Message for Emiel Regis, vampire."

A couple of ravens flew to him.

"All right," he said, "tell him this: Syanna has been accused of planning to assassinate her sister."

One raven flew away.

"I'm not done yet!" Geralt snapped. "Okay, your turn. Tell him the rest of the message: Because she's been seen with a vampire. Is that you, Regis? If so, where are you? The duchess wants her home."

The second raven flew away.

"I don't know how much that will help, since I won't be able to understand the ravens when they come back," Geralt muttered to himself, "but at least I tried."

* * *

Regis looked at Syanna's sleeping figure. They had found a little cave to shelter in when the snow had started falling in earnest. Tired, hungry, and cold, Syanna had burrowed herself into a dry corner of the cave and fallen asleep, wrapped, as always, in the black cloak. Regis was keeping vigil. The moon was full, and it was almost midnight. When midnight struck, Regis would wake Syanna up and take her just past the mountain pass.

A caw sounded just outside the cave. Regis poked his head out. A raven was looking at him expectantly. He listened to its message and mutely let it go.

He looked at Syanna again, his expression quite changed. The lying manipulator sleeps soundly and sweetly, he thought to himself. The moon was full. Customarily, he remembered, on such nights, vampires drank a toast to the moon.

Regis sat there and allowed midnight to pass. Then the remaining watches of the night passed. At nearly daybreak, a second raven, a little dazed and lost, alighted next to the mouth of the cave. Regis listened to its message. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head slowly. Then he took out a scrap of paper, a piece of charcoal, and a small piece of string from his bag. The raven looked even more confused and a little affronted but held out its leg. Regis wrote "beyond the northern pass" on the paper and tied it carefully to the raven's leg. The raven ruffled up its feathers, hopped about a little, then flew away.

Reaching his hand once more into his bag, Regis felt a familiar piece of cold metal. He drew it out. It was the Humanist's ring. An expression of shame and regret spread over his face. The downturned corners of his tightly pressed lips trembled slightly. He took off his jerkin and covered Syanna with it. He took off his doublet, too, leaving him clad only in his simple white undershirt and trousers. He laid the doublet over Syanna and tucked the sleeves around and under her.


	5. A consummation devoutly to be wished

When the first raven returned in the morning without a message, Geralt was understandably irritated but offered it some bread from his pocket. He paced around his yard, thinking, then tacked up Roach and left Corvo Bianco for the palace without a word. On the road there he considered buying a saddle cushion, although he was afraid that he would look ridiculous on one. He had not slept all night after returning from the palace the day before, in addition to having just returned from Novigrad. His body ached all over, and he knew he looked haggard.

He had no idea where to begin his own investigation. It was still snowing, and the mountain passes were surely blocked by now. He could only hope that Syanna had already crossed the passes into Toussaint and would turn up of her own accord. In the meantime, he wanted to see if the captain had made any progress in his interrogations.

* * *

Syanna moved her arms, but something was pinning them to her sides. Still caught in the hazy dreamlike state between sleeping and waking, she panicked and cried out.

Regis, who had been sitting and dozing fitfully next to her, immediately reached out and rested a hand on her, not realizing that he was making the sensation of being trapped worse.

"Anarietta!" Syanna said. She struggled. Then she began to wake up properly and realized that she was bundled up in not just Regis's cloak but also his long-skirted jerkin and doublet. She wriggled to loosen the clothes and saw Regis's black eyes staring at her with an unfamiliar expression. It took a while for her to realize that he was looking at her with concern.

"Is it midnight yet?" Syanna asked, although she could plainly see the light reflecting off the snow at the entrance of the cave.

"Midnight has come and gone," Regis said. He dropped his gaze.

Silence, the ever-present third member of their party, took its turn in the conversation.

"It's all right," Syanna said. "I'm too tired to go any further. Too tired to go home."

"Your sister wants you home," Regis said. "She has asked the witcher to find you."

Syanna looked stunned. She did not ask how Regis knew this; she simply turned away and discreetly wiped her nose with the back of her hand, which was turning numb in the cold after having been withdrawn from the protection of the cloak. "The one time I want to be found..."

They both contemplated the snow, the beautiful white mantle that lay on everything so softly and hid everything so perfectly and thoroughly.

* * *

Damien was wearing an expression fit to scare confessions out of the most hardened criminals when Geralt found him outside a small chamber in the palace that had been temporarily repurposed for questioning the huntsmen who had been with Syanna. They were actually part of the household of the young Sir Tristan du Chemin and so had not been held in jail while awaiting questioning.

"They all say the same thing," Damien immediately said when he saw Geralt.

"Where do they say Syanna is?" Geralt said with a similar lack of preamble.

Damien frowned at Geralt. "No, they can't be trusted. Their stories match too well. Someone has instructed them to tell the exact same story: that Syanna suddenly commanded a vampire to attack them; that she ran off with it; that they barely escaped with their lives. The vampire had long claws, a fearsome face, et cetera. This one was attacked first, then the other fell, then yet another lost his hat in the scuffle. This happened beyond the northern pass. So they say. And beyond that, they refuse to speculate or say anything else."

"What do you think?" Geralt said.

The captain snorted. "I just told you: they can't be trusted. There's no telling how much of their story is true and how much is false."

"What parts do you think are true?"

"Perhaps you'd like to interrogate them yourself," Damien said with a sharp glance at Geralt.

"Perhaps," Geralt said.

Damien opened his mouth to say something else in frustration but closed it after apparently deciding that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have Geralt talk to the huntsmen. He motioned for Geralt to follow him.

They crossed a courtyard to fetch the huntsmen from yet another room. Damien told Geralt to wait outside and went into the building. Just then, a raven alighted on Geralt's shoulder and cawed.

"I don't speak raven, or vampire, or whatever," Geralt said with a scowl.

The raven stuck out its leg with another ear-piercing caw. Geralt spotted the paper tied to the raven's leg and undid the string carefully. He took the paper and offered the raven a piece of bread. It ate the bread cheerfully, preened itself, and flew away.

Geralt looked at the little slip of paper. "Beyond the northern pass," he mouthed, recognizing Regis's handwriting. Geralt had made a lucky guess: Regis was indeed with Syanna. And they were beyond the northern pass; they would be stuck there for at least a month in these conditions. In any case, the huntsmen had most likely not fabricated the part of their story about encountering a vampire.

When Damien emerged from the building with the huntsmen, Geralt knew for certain that they had not fabricated that part of their story. Their injuries, though they were largely healed, looked very much like they had been inflicted by a higher vampire. The only possible inconsistency was that they were all still alive and their blood was still in their veins.

Geralt seized on that inconsistency. He didn't want Regis to deal with any more trouble than necessary.

"Captain de la Tour," he growled, "these men have been lying to you."

The huntsmen looked across the courtyard towards the sound of the voice and were surprised to see Geralt waiting for them. A couple of them turned pale and looked intimidated, even scared. Geralt, with his white hair, copiously scarred pale skin, and unnatural eyes, did tend to have that effect on people who did not know him. To top it all off, being grumpy and exhausted from lack of sleep, he probably looked even more frightful than usual.

He advanced menacingly on the group, adjusting his scabbard strap as he went. The steel of his sword clattered.

"What kind of self-respecting vampire," he said gruffly, "leaves its victims alive? Surely you all remember the Night of Long Fangs."

"That's how we knew it was a vampire, sir," one of the younger huntsmen squeaked. "Looked like a vampire, had fangs and claws—"

"You couldn't tell the difference between a vampire and a barber-surgeon, you insolent chit," Geralt barked. "I'm a witcher and I know my monsters. If you're telling the truth, at least one of you got bitten, surely. Who?"

"I... I did?" the youth said in a faltering voice after looking around at his comrades, clearly trying to give an answer that would accord with the witcher's encyclopedic knowledge of vampires.

"Where's your scar?"

"It's healed over," the youth said quickly, holding his neck.

Geralt wrenched the youth's hand off his neck. Damien watched without making any move to interfere. Geralt was amused to see that there was indeed a mark, but it was quite a different one than expected. "Don't confuse your succubi with your vampires, boy," he muttered with as much disdain as he could inject into his voice. The youth blushed to the roots of his hair.

"Well?" Geralt said, looking at the huntsmen with a very unpleasant look.

The huntsmen looked at their shoes.

"Master witcher, let's not waste time in the courtyard," Damien said. "They'll talk to you in the interrogation chamber."

"Oh, yes, they'll talk," Geralt said, emphasizing every word. "To me."

"One on one," Damien said, also emphasizing every word.

"Draw straws to pick who goes first," Geralt said. "I'll give him some time to write a letter home."

Another huntsman, who had been steadily turning grey, suddenly dropped to his knees. "Mercy," he cried, "have mercy! It was Sir Tristan who—"

An older huntsman kicked him to shut him up. The kick was a little too hard and the one on his knees fell flat on his face.

"Guards," Damien said without raising his voice. A good number of ducal guards clink-clanked their way into the small courtyard, apparently out of nowhere. "Convey these men to the holding cells and bring Sir Tristan du Chemin to me." He handed a seal of authority to one guardsman. "I shall be waiting in the interrogation chamber." The guards left with the huntsmen.

The captain turned to Geralt. "Have you ever considered—" he began.

"Yes, but no, thank you," Geralt said. "Now that we've gotten rid of them, I have some urgent news. Syanna is indeed beyond the northern pass."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Damien bristled. "If you knew—"

"My information reached me in the courtyard while you were getting the men," Geralt said.

Damien gave Geralt a skeptical look.

"Witcher trade secret," Geralt deadpanned.

The captain seemed to accept his non-explanation. "I'll send out a search party."

"The passes are snowed up," Geralt reminded him, "and, besides, I may have a better idea. I saw Fringilla Vigo around here yesterday. Where can I find her?"

* * *

The ruins again: Tesham Mutna, as it appears in my dreams. This time, there's no Themis. Even Syanna's not in the dream. Has Themis said all she had wanted to say to me? Have I... disappointed her?

I look around. The discarded ribbon is still on the ground. I pick it up and put it in my pocket.

* * *

Regis hit the back of his head against the wall of the cave as he woke from his dream with a start. He blinked away the pain and made no further resolutions about where he would or would not fall asleep in the future. He had dozed off yet again; he and Syanna had simply not moved from their spots since they had talked in the morning. He looked over at Syanna to find that she had put on his clothes as they were meant to be worn, instead of being wrapped up like a shapeless bundle. Though he was thin, his clothes still looked big on her.

"Let's go, Syanna," he said abruptly.

Syanna frowned, surprised.

"I may not be able to fly you back, but I can certainly carry you back," Regis said. He stood up and stretched with feline thoroughness, trying to get the feeling back in his joints and to limber up for a long journey. "If you'll allow me to."

She reached up her arms at him to indicate her assent; she was truly too tired and weak to make much conversation. He moved to pick her up, but first took off his gloves and slid them, not without difficulty, over her stiff hands.

To Regis's own surprise, it was laughably easy for him to pick her up and carry her on his back. He took his resistance to heat and cold for granted, but he had forgotten that he also had a vampire's natural strength. So much of his strength had been sapped by the process of regeneration for so long.

"Shall we?" he said before he stepped out of the cave.

She nodded and rested her face against the grizzled hair on the back of his head.

* * *

The palace library was just as Geralt had remembered it: overwhelmingly big and impractically fitted with a glass ceiling. The glass allowed natural light to flood the library—except when the glass was covered with a thick layer of snow. The place was dim and quiet. Fringilla was standing between two toweringly tall shelves, reading something.

"Madam," Geralt began.

The book in Fringilla's hand closed with a snap. She put the book back unhurriedly and turned her pale face towards Geralt. "Before we get into a discussion about Syanna—for you surely have no other reason to talk to me—let me make one thing clear. That which passed between us the last time we were both in Toussaint—"

"Has passed, yes," Geralt interrupted. He didn't want to hear how she was going to end the sentence.

Fringilla stood with her head held high, her face retaining its dignified paleness. "Good. So, let us get to business. What do you need from me?"

"A portal."

"A portal?"

"A portal."

"A por—so you know where Syanna is," Fringilla said, her expression a mixture of suspicion and disbelief.

Geralt shrugged. "Beyond the northern pass."

"How did you know?" Fringilla's expression was definitely tending towards being one of suspicion.

"A little bird told me," Geralt said, not untruthfully.

"If you want to make jokes, I suppose that is your prerogative," Fringilla said with a sniff. "Privately, between you and me—"

"There is nothing going on," Geralt helpfully finished her sentence again.

"Between you and me," Fringilla repeated, her face remaining pale but not very calm, "that is to say, confidentially speaking, I am assisting the duchess in finding her sister. I have also found that she is somewhere beyond the northern pass, yet I'm having difficulty pinpointing her exact location. A portal is a nice enough idea, but I can't set up a blind portal. It's too dangerous."

"If you already knew where she was," Geralt said, "why didn't you let Captain de la Tour know before the snow fell, so that he could send out a search party?"

"I'm doing this _in secret_," Fringilla said, lowering her voice in the otherwise empty library for some reason. "Was that clear enough, or do I have to use smaller words? Anyway, after a lot of preparation, I've taken the steps to provide her a way back."

"Such as? Oh, pardon me; I suppose that is a secret as well."

"There's no need to be so sarcastic," Fringilla said. Geralt was mildly surprised to see that she did look a little hurt. "I sent her the magic ribbon to the Land of a Thousand Fables."

Geralt blinked. "How?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Fringilla said with a triumphant smile. "I'll tell you. It was a complex combination of illusion, oneiromancy, and sympathetic magic. The sympathetic part was quite simple; I took one of her prized daggers to serve as the connection to her. To simplify matters regarding the illusion and oneiromancy part of the spell construction, let's just say that I sent the ribbon to her via a very realistic, illusion-level dream."

"So, she should be back any minute now, right?" Geralt said, looking around as if Syanna was going to appear out of thin air at any moment.

Fringilla's face dropped.

"There was a problem?" Geralt said.

"Obviously," Fringilla snapped. "She's not here! The ribbon has to be with her now, but she hasn't used it to teleport into the Land of a Thousand Fables!"

Geralt rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of what was going on. "Is she still alive?"

"Of course," Fringilla said confidently.

"Is she alone?"

"Yes. I can see her very vaguely through all the snow, and there's not a single human being out there in that wilderness besides her."

That answer doesn't exclude Regis being with her, at least, Geralt thought. "Does she want to come back?" he asked.

Fringilla hesitated before responding. "I don't know."

Geralt also hesitated. "Maybe we should let Captain de la Tour send a search party out as far as they can go."

* * *

Regis stomped his way through the thick snow, leaving two straight, deep grooves in his wake. They were passing on one side of a rocky cliff.

"Are you all right back there?" he said, trying to keep his tone light and cheery.

"Mm-hm," Syanna responded.

On the back of his right ear Regis could feel the movement of air in and out of Syanna's nostrils. The rhythm of her breathing was becoming slow and relaxed. She was falling asleep again. He wasn't sure if he should let her fall asleep.

She let out a deep sigh. "Dettlaff," she mumbled into Regis's hair.

Regis jostled Syanna deliberately as he stopped to readjust her position on his back. Just as he did so, a cracking noise made him look up. Suddenly keenly conscious of Syanna's human fragility, he tried to run away from the cliff as fast as he could, but the rockfall caught up with them in no time at all, and all he could do was try to shield her as a giant rock came bounding down—


	6. The undiscovered country

—and disappeared into thin air.

In fact, the cold and the white and the snow all disappeared. They were replaced by warmth, color, and sunshine.

Regis found himself lying in a grassy meadow. Buttercups cheerily nodded in the breeze inches from his face. He rolled over and got up. The gently undulating landscape was adorned with all manner of trees, flowers, and quaint buildings, as well as the brightest rainbow Regis had ever seen. Next to him Syanna was getting up from the ground, very much awake. She looked around, rubbed her eyes, and pinched herself.

"Is this what comes after?" she asked, looking questioningly at Regis.

"After what?"

"After, you know... did I... in the snow?"

Regis caught on to what she was thinking. "I think you're still very much alive, Syanna."

Syanna sighed. "It would have been nice if this were it. To be able to return to the happiest times of one's life..."

"You've been here before?"

"It's the Land of a Thousand Fables."

Regis recalled that this was where Geralt had gone to look for Syanna before. The duchess had imprisoned her in the Fablesphere, for her safety as much as for anyone else's, when Dettlaff had demanded to see Syanna after realizing that she'd tricked and manipulated him into killing the knights who had wronged her. Regis also recalled that breaking her out in order for Dettlaff to meet her had almost led to her death at Dettlaff's hands. It had certainly led to Dettlaff's death.

"Don't worry," Syanna said as Regis continued staring into the distance in silence, "the illusion has been stabilized. Uncle Artorius set it up for us when we were children, and it decayed over time, but Fringilla recently tidied up around here. It won't be as entertaining as it used to be, but at least nothing will try to kill us."

Regis blinked to chase away his thoughts and tried to pay attention to Syanna. She was talking a lot all of a sudden, although her voice still sounded weak and tired. "How did we get here?" he asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," she said. "Usually you enter through the playroom, or you use the magic ribbon."

Regis took a deep breath and slowly slid his hand into his pocket, afraid of what he would find inside. His fingers touched an unfamiliar piece of smooth fabric. He pulled it out and frowned at it.

Syanna also frowned. "It's the ribbon. Where did you get that?"

"Someone," he said, "has been poking around in my dreams." He felt strangely violated.

* * *

Anna Henrietta followed Damien down the dark torchlit corridor to the holding cells. Her hands were clasped firmly together, so firmly that her fingernails dug painfully into her skin. They came to the cell where Tristan du Chemin was being held.

"Your Grace," Tristan said quietly, looking at her through the bars of the cell. He rose from the floor.

She dug her fingernails further into her skin in order to prevent herself from reaching between the bars to throttle his traitorous little neck.

"You planned to assassinate my sister, then you accused her of being in league with a vampire, and you still have the temerity to address me as your liege. Very bold of you, Sir Tristan."

"She is friendly, at least, with a vampire, Your Grace," Tristan replied blandly, as if he were making the statement for the hundredth time. "True, she didn't command it to attack my men, but she was saved by one. The duchy remains in danger from her."

"Sir Tristan, you have nothing to gain from continuing to lie, especially since the witcher has all but discredited the supposed eyewitness accounts of your men," Damien said.

"I only have the interests of the duchy at heart." Tristan closed his eyes.

The duchess's lips curled into a sneer. "I know what all of you mean when you say that. You mean that I, the duchess, do not have the interests of the duchy at heart, because I care for my own sister. Whereas all of you wise and knowing men care for the people impartially, with no self-interest at all."

Tristan did not protest, which infuriated the duchess.

"Where is she? What have you done with her?" she demanded, although she knew it was unlikely that Tristan knew, and despite the fact that Fringilla had informed her of Syanna's approximate whereabouts already.

Tristan shook his head.

Anna Henrietta reined in the urge to slap him. "You will await trial here. Since all of you think I am too merciful, I will stray neither to the left nor to the right in dealing with you. It shall all be by the book. Be grateful for that, Sir Tristan."

* * *

"It's warm here," Syanna said, unbuttoning Regis's jerkin and doublet, which she was still wearing. "Take your clothes back." She shrugged them off and handed them to him. Then she took up the black cloak, which she had cast off to remove the jerkin and doublet, and put it on again.

"Do you still need my cloak?" Regis asked.

For some reason, Syanna pressed her lips together. Her expression was ambiguous. Regis let the matter drop.

They reached the cottage that Syanna had been leading them to. They both badly needed a rest and so had decided to stay in the Fablesphere until they had recovered their strength somewhat. The creak of the door hinges echoed in the cozy space as they pushed the door open and entered the cottage. On a wooden table there were three bowls of porridge: one large, one medium, one small. Syanna immediately grabbed a spoon from the table and set about eating the porridge in the small bowl, which was just cool enough to bolt down quickly.

Regis picked up a spoon and poked at the cold porridge in the medium bowl. "You said there were beds here, too?"

"Yes," Syanna said thickly through a mouthful of porridge. "I call dibs on the smallest one."

* * *

"There shall be no banquet," Anna Henrietta said. "It is unseemly to feast while our sister remains missing."

Victor Tremblay twisted his chain of office between his fingers. "But Your Grace, the minister from Redania will be terribly insulted."

Chamberlain Le Goff piped up before the duchess could reply. "The preparations have all been made, Your Grace; the seating arrangements have all been finalized, the wine has been delivered, everyone is looking forward to the banquet..."

Anna Henrietta looked at them wearily. She hoped that her makeup was adequately concealing the dark circles under her eyes. After many sleepless nights spent thinking about Syanna and where she could be, she was tired; perhaps even too tired to steamroller over the two most spineless people in her court with her usual iron will.

The minister and the chamberlain watched her, on tenterhooks.

"Then let it proceed," she said. "But let it be known that I take no joy in it."

* * *

Regis hadn't slept in a bed since leaving Novigrad. He was fully capable of sleeping anywhere, anytime, even hanging upside down from the roof of a cave, but it was nice to stretch out on an actual bed under soft, warm covers from time to time. This bed was soft to the point that it was practically swallowing Regis up in its fluffy embrace, true, but it was a bed.

At the other end of the room, Syanna was occupying the smallest bed. Regis was amused to see that she was clutching the black cloak like a child's blanket.

"You can keep the cloak if it means that much to you," Regis said.

Syanna's eyes peeked out from under the cloak. "Do you really mean that?"

"I do."

"Thank you."

He waited for her to drift off to sleep, but she didn't.

"Why do you like my cloak so much?" Regis eventually asked.

Syanna hesitated before answering. "Will you promise not to be offended by my answer?" she said quietly.

"Why would I be?" Regis said.

"Because I will mention his name."

Regis pulled the duvet over his mouth and muffled his sigh with it. "I shall not be offended," he murmured. "Though my silence will make me appear so. But you may speak. I asked the question, after all."

"Let's not speak his name, then. Your cloak smells like him. Perhaps vampires all smell the same? But that's all there is to it."

"Hm."

"Thank you for letting me have it."

"Hm."

She waited for him to drift off to sleep, but he didn't.

* * *

The sound of approaching footsteps caused Fringilla to look up from the thick tome in her hands. "Here to borrow a book, witcher?" she said coolly.

Geralt folded his arms across his chest. "Damien's dispatched his men, but if Syanna's beyond the northern pass—"

"She's not anymore," Fringilla said.

"Oh?"

"I can't see her out there," Fringilla said irritably.

"Maybe she's in the Fablesphere," Geralt posited.

"I've been hovering around the bloody fountain all night and morning since I lost track of her, but she hasn't used the fountain to exit the Land of a Thousand Fables. Leave me alone and let me think."

"Maybe she's still in there."

"Maybe, maybe. If you have one more maybe—"

"Maybe we can go into the Fablesphere to look for her," Geralt said.

Fringilla gritted her teeth. She couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of actually entering the Fablesphere to check if Syanna was there. Perhaps she was.

"Do you have any idea how big that illusion is?" she said. "We could be combing—"

"I know how big it is," Geralt interrupted yet again. "I'm tired of being summoned by Anna Henrietta for twice-daily progress reports. Being attacked by murderous guard pixies would be better. Let's go."

"There are no more _murderous guard pixies_ there. I cleaned up the illusion. And I'm not here to be bossed around by you," Fringilla said.

Geralt shrugged. "Then don't go. I'm going to the palace playroom. See you later."

He turned around and strode off.

Fringilla got up, laid down _Vampires: Facts and Myths_ on a shelf, and hurried after him.

* * *

Regis pottered about looking for strong-smelling herbs in the garden of the cottage. Some time ago, he had run out of the herbs that he carried in his bag to mask his natural scent, and his conversation with Syanna about the cloak's smell had reminded him that he needed to gather more herbs.

Contrary to what she had said, vampires didn't all smell the same. Regis's scent had only started resembling Dettlaff's after the latter had used his blood to help Regis regenerate. The blood in Regis's veins was, in some sense, Dettlaff's.

Perhaps it was that fact, and not Regis's promise to Geralt, that had compelled Regis to swiftly intervene to save Syanna in the forest that day.

The bond created by blood, Regis thought, was strong and mysterious. The bond created by love was also strong and mysterious.

What about hate? Did that also create a bond?

_I'm not going to forgive you. And I'm not going to leave you be._

Regis reluctantly allowed himself to wonder whether those words had been his or Dettlaff's.

* * *

The palace playroom hadn't changed since Geralt had last been in it. He picked up the book _The Land of a Thousand Fables_ from the table. Fringilla stood opposite him and watched as he opened the book.

"Expecto Ludum," they said in unison.

The book clattered back down on the table in the now empty room.

* * *

A fire burned merrily in the fireplace in the cottage. Regis removed his small pot from the hearth and inspected its contents. He was making a tea of some sort.

"How do you feel?" Regis asked.

Syanna shrugged. "Better. It's easier to get proper rest on a full stomach and in a warm bed."

"Indeed it is," Regis said. He poured some of the tea into a mug and offered it to Syanna. As she took the mug, he noticed an unfamiliar expression on her face. It took him a while to realize that it was an expression of gratitude.

Suddenly, the cottage door swung open. Syanna froze, clutching her mug to her chest. Regis stood up.

Geralt and Fringilla were standing in the doorway. "That's one more person than I was expecting," Fringilla said, eyeing Regis cautiously, "and I certainly wasn't expecting to see you here, Mr. Regis."

Regis curtly nodded his head to acknowledge Fringilla's presence and turned to Geralt. "And I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon, Geralt. But I'm glad to see you. I take it you're here for the young lady."

Geralt smiled. "Good to see you too, Regis. We're here to take Syanna home. Thanks for taking care of her."

"It's nothing. I promised I wouldn't let her come to harm, after all," Regis said.

"Fringilla," Syanna finally said, "did Anarietta send you to find me, too?"

"Of course," Fringilla said, her voice suddenly gentle. She crossed the room to meet Syanna and gave her a light hug. Syanna smiled. Regis realized that he hadn't seen Syanna smile the whole time they'd been together.

"It's time for me to go, then," Regis said. "If someone would be so kind as to let me out of this illusion, preferably outside of Toussaint—"

"That's out of the question," Fringilla said quickly. "You can only exit through the fountain or the playroom. And I'd rather everyone stay together as we go out of here."

"The duchess isn't looking for me, surely," Regis said coldly.

"No," Fringilla said, "but I do have some questions for you."

"Is that so?" Regis said. "Very well, then. I have some questions for you myself."

Fringilla and Regis stared at each other.

"What's this about, Regis?" Geralt said. "Fringilla?"

"Let's talk once we're out of here," Fringilla said.

* * *

The wooden floor of the playroom trembled slightly as four people suddenly materialized on it.

"Syanna," Fringilla said as soon as they had made it into the playroom, "Geralt will convey you to Anarietta."

Syanna was about to leave the room when Geralt stopped her with an upraised hand. "Hold on," Geralt said. "We'll all go together to see the duchess. The two of you, Regis and Fringilla, had better sort out your differences here. Now."

Regis spoke first. "Madam Vigo, I understand that you have exceptional talent in the magical skill of illusions. If you've been influencing what I see when I sleep—"

"What are you talking about?" Fringilla said with a frown.

"Did you send the ribbon to me through my dreams?" Regis asked.

"Apparently I did, but it wasn't meant for you," Fringilla said, "so, if it ended up with you, I think we had better try to figure out how it did. I was trying to send it to Syanna with a combination of sympathetic magic, oneiromancy—"

"What object did you use as the connection to Syanna?" Regis interrupted.

Fringilla pictured the object in her mind. "A dagger with a handle bearing three silver studs, in a black sheath decorated with goldwork—"

"That's one of a pair," Syanna said. "I lost mine when they tried to kill me on the hunting trip." She looked at Regis. "The other one belonged to..."

Regis folded his arms and tucked his chin onto his chest.

"Was it yours, Regis?" Geralt asked when he saw that nobody was going to speak.

Regis shook his head.

"You're being very mysterious, Mr. Regis. You, too, Syanna," Fringilla said, dissatisfied.

"It belonged to Dettlaff," Syanna said quietly.

"The vampire? The Beast of Beauclair? So why would it serve as a connection to him?" Fringilla said, gesturing at Regis.

The reason occurred to Geralt, but he remained silent.

"Blood is important in magic, isn't it?" Regis finally said. "Blood carries someone's identity, for example."

The sorceress paused to think. She sniffed. "Would you step in front of those mirrors, Mr. Regis?"

"Fringilla," Geralt said with a note of warning in his voice.

Regis stepped in front of the mirrors. Nobody in the room was surprised by his lack of reflection.

"Well, that explains everything," Fringilla said smugly. "Syanna, you've been travelling with a vampire this whole time."

"I know," Syanna said.

Fringilla's mouth twitched. "Of course you would know. You took one as a lover once, after all. Anyway, this explains why I saw you travelling alone; vampires aren't detectable by long-range magic scrying. Strangely enough, it also corroborates the accounts of the huntsmen who were with you."

"He saved me," Syanna said defensively.

"I'm sure he did," Geralt said, also defensively, as he cast a sidelong glance at Fringilla.

"Can I step away from the mirrors now?" Regis said.

"As you wish, Mr. Regis," Fringilla said. "You are related to Dettlaff van der Eretein by blood, then?"

Regis nodded.

"The dagger belonged to him; you are his next of kin; so the ribbon ended up with you. That's all there is to it. You dreamed of a ribbon in a place that holds some significance for you, and you picked up the ribbon. Something happened to trigger the ribbon's effects, and you ended up in the Land of a Thousand Fables." Fringilla paused, then added, "I don't influence any of your other dreams, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Very good," Regis said curtly. "We have come to an understanding, then. Now will you let me leave?"

"The duchess may want to reward you for the help you've rendered her sister," Fringilla said. "Wouldn't you like to hear what she has to say in thanks for your service?"

"I hardly think she'd want to talk to a vampire," Regis said.

"Who's going to tell her she's talking to one?" Fringilla raised her eyebrows and tilted her head.

"Nobody, if I can help it," Geralt said in a low voice.

"No need to resort to threats, Geralt. It doesn't become you," Fringilla said. "It's not in my interest to have this affair agitate Toussaint any more than it already has. Syanna's safely home, and that's all that matters. Now we just have to go see Anarietta."

Geralt groaned.


	7. Let a cup of sack be my poison

The study door swung open. Anna Henrietta turned around, startled; then she saw who it was that had entered and spread out her arms. Syanna ran straight into her sister's waiting embrace. The two hugged each other tightly for a long time.

Fringilla discreetly glided into the study and waited by the fireplace. Geralt stepped in as well and stood by the door. Regis hung back, standing in the doorway with one foot over the threshold.

The sisters released each other. "I thought I'd lost you again forever," Anna Henrietta said softly.

Syanna reached out and squeezed her sister's hand. "I thought so, too. Good thing we were both wrong."

"Sit down, Syanna, and have something to drink," Anna Henrietta said, guiding Syanna to one of the armchairs by the fireplace. Syanna sat down. Anna Henrietta leaned over the chair and took a good look at Syanna in the glow of the firelight. "You've grown thin," Anna Henrietta said sadly. "You've been through so much. I'll ask my personal physician to attend to you." She noticed the bandages, by now ragged and dirty, that peeked out from under Syanna's doublet. "You were hurt?"

"I'm mostly all right now," Syanna said, looking around for Regis but not seeing him ensconced in the shadows by the door. "I just need some rest." She cleared her throat. "Thank you, Anarietta, for sending Fringilla and the witcher to look for me."

"Captain de la Tour was also on your case," Anna Henrietta said, "and he has apprehended the mastermind behind the attempt on your life. We will see to it that justice will be done."

Perhaps it was just the effect of the shadows cast by the flickering firelight, but Syanna seemed to wince at hearing these words.

Anna Henrietta rose from Syanna's side and looked at Fringilla, then at Geralt. Regis had inched his way backwards over the threshold, just beyond Anna Henrietta's line of sight, and was standing stock-still in the shadows. He did not catch her eye.

"Who do we have to thank for the restoration of our sister to us?" the duchess said, assuming her regal air once again.

"You hired a witcher for naught, Your Grace," Geralt said placidly. "A witcher is not a wonderworker. The mountain passes were impassable due to the snow; I could not search for Syanna myself. The ever-resourceful Madam Vigo sent a magic ribbon to Syanna and rescued her by getting her back into the Land of a Thousand Fables." He had noticed Regis melting away into the shadows and so deliberately left out any mention of him to the duchess.

"We thank you for your help nevertheless, Geralt," Anna Henrietta said. She turned to Fringilla. "You deserve a very great reward, Fringilla. One of the more prominent public awards, I think."

"Oh, no," Fringilla said, shaking her head resolutely. "I need no reward, and public recognition I need even less. I do not wish to draw any undue attention to myself in Toussaint. Remember: I helped you on the condition that my involvement be kept secret. Pardon me, but one need only look at Syanna to see what your courtiers do to people in the public eye that they consider a threat."

Anna Henrietta's mouth flattened into a thin, hard line. "Indeed."

Fringilla looked over at Geralt. The corners of her mouth quirked into a smile that was not altogether pleasant. "If you do want to reward someone..."

Geralt shot her a warning look and shook his head.

"...why not reward Mr. Regis? Geralt, it seems, has forgotten to credit his friend," Fringilla said. Geralt opened his mouth but said nothing.

"Regis?" Anna Henrietta looked around.

The vampire stepped into the room, gripping the strap of his bag tightly with his hands. His head was held high and his expression carefully neutral. "Your Grace," he said. He smiled a tight-lipped smile.

"He found me, bandaged me up, and accompanied me as I tried to make my way back to Toussaint," Syanna explained. "If it weren't for him I wouldn't be alive." She caught sight of Geralt's disgruntled expression and quickly added, "But Regis is not fond of rewards either."

"Very well. You shall occupy a seat of honor at the upcoming banquet, Regis," Anna Henrietta said with a gracious inclination of her head.

"I regret to inform Your Grace that—"

"You _shall_ occupy a seat of honor," Anna Henrietta repeated, "at the upcoming banquet. It is our desire."

Regis's neutral expression rearranged itself briefly to suggest that this was not his desire.

"That is most fitting," Fringilla said. "With your permission, I take my leave; goodbye for now, Syanna and Anarietta." She left the study without so much as a look at Geralt or Regis.

"Syanna, if you feel up to it, I would like you to come to the banquet, too," Anna Henrietta said. "It will be a lot less tedious with you there. And Geralt, you shall come too."

Geralt didn't even bother to argue.

"You may bring Lady Yennefer to accompany you, if you wish," the duchess added as an afterthought.

"Lady Yennefer is not in Toussaint at the moment. May I bring another guest?" Geralt asked.

"That is a fair request," Anna Henrietta said. "Who would you like to bring?"

Geralt smiled. In the flickering firelight, his smile looked rather nasty.

* * *

Chamberlain Le Goff ran from one table to another, shuffling place cards and making notes on some sheets of paper. "Lady Sylvia Anna has to sit next to the duchess, there's no other way," he muttered to himself. "The count is to occupy a place of honor, but what about the Redanian minister of justice, for whom the banquet is being held? Let us seat the count on this side of the head table... no, this side... here, with these ladies... Very well, we shall make sure to make up for the less than optimal seating by offering abundant toasts in honor of everyone. I suppose the count is still incognito and would rather be addressed as Mr. Regis."

Le Goff looked at the place cards, thought a bit, and swapped a couple of them. "The nice thing about having His Grace," he said to himself, "is that he makes conversation flow much more easily. The count is a very pleasant man, and he possesses a keen artistic eye, to boot." He swapped a couple more place cards. "There. Now for the witcher and Madam Vigo..."

* * *

"Doctor, how is Lady Sylvia Anna?" the duchess asked the physician as he exited Syanna's room.

"She is doing well, given the circumstances, Your Grace," he said as he tucked away his instruments in his bag. "Her wounds from the attack were expertly treated soon after they were inflicted, fortunately. She is a little weak from exposure and lack of food, but otherwise she is fine."

"Thank you," Anna Henrietta said. "You may go." The doctor nodded and went his way.

Anna Henrietta entered the room. Syanna was sitting up in bed and thumbing through a book. A beautifully ornamented dagger lay on her bedside table. She looked up from the book.

"Sister," she said, "thank you for looking for me."

"You're repeating yourself," Anna Henrietta said, "and it's unnecessary to say that. It's my duty as a sister."

"I have something on my mind," Syanna said quietly.

Anna Henrietta had noticed that her normally bold and straightforward sister had turned unusually quiet and pensive since returning home. It was perhaps not surprising, given that she had just survived an attempt on her life and an arduous journey in harsh weather. Anna Henrietta sat down on the edge of the bed. "What is it?" she asked.

"The young courtier you said was responsible for the assassination attempt, Tristan du Chemin—is it possible for you to grant him a pardon?"

Anna Henrietta looked away. "Why should I? I need to be just and impartial," she said bitterly. "It's my duty as a ruler."

* * *

"With both the ladies at the banquet, our plan should change, should it not?"

"Why should it?"

"Now both of them are sitting ducks—"

"Are you considering poisoning them both?"

"I thought—"

"If both of them go down, it will be obvious that deliberate poisoning was involved. Especially if Sylvia Anna were poisoned—everyone knows that most people in court dislike her greatly. No; the brilliance of our plan is that nobody could suspect the loyal Toussaintois of trying to harm their own duchess."

"Well, _I_ thought it was brilliant because, before Sylvia Anna returned, it could look as if the duchess was simply overwhelmed with grief at the loss of her sister..."

"This time the effect of the poison can be attributed to overexcitement at the return of her sister."

"Oh, brilliant!"

"And we ought to leave Sylvia Anna alone. Without the duchess, who would support her against the wishes of the court? She'll lose her special status. And perhaps she can take the blame if the poisoning is uncovered. Say what you want about du Chemin and his methods, but that particular rumor about her planning to take over the duchy will not go away any time soon, and it can work in our favor. The disgruntled older sister wresting the throne back from her younger sister..."

"Brilliant," Le Goff said.

Tremblay nodded slowly.

* * *

"You invited me along just to spite me," Fringilla hissed at Geralt.

"You drew attention to Regis to spite me," Geralt said, reaching for a chicken leg. "I'd say we're even." He took a bite of the chicken and chewed it meditatively. The food had tasted much better the first time he had been in Toussaint, when hunger and the rigors of a long journey had seasoned his meals better than any exotic spice could. He wondered if he was getting a little too used to his good domestic fortune now.

Meanwhile, Fringilla had barely put anything on her plate and was looking at the head table with a vaguely disgusted look on her face. "Did you think you were doing him a favor by trying to keep him away from attention? Look at him," she muttered. "He's _enjoying_ himself." Geralt followed the direction of her gaze with his eyes and saw that Regis was animatedly but elegantly delivering some captivating monologue to a raptly attentive audience at the head table.

Geralt indecisively waved his fork around the dishes in front of him and eventually reached for some salad. "He certainly seems to be enjoying himself, yes," he conceded.

At the head table, Anna Henrietta was alternating between engaging in bland and marginally pleasant conversation with the Redanian minister of justice and enjoying Syanna's company.

"Now, I'm no expert in economic matters, but I did notice a sharp increase in the amount of garlic and silver that Toussaint has been importing in the last year or so," the minister said as he daintily speared the flesh of a snail doused in garlic butter with a tiny silver escargot fork.

The duchess nodded politely. Syanna, who was seated on her other side, appeared to be occupied with detaching snails from their shells as she whispered, "Yes, it's due to the sharp increase in pointless banquets in the last year or so." Anna Henrietta hurriedly swallowed a mouthful of food to prevent herself from choking with laughter.

A little farther down the head table, Regis was astounding the ladies with his encyclopedic knowledge of lunar phases, mammalian flight, and the construction of wells in the tenth century, as well as the intersection of the three.

The chamberlain tapped his glass and stood up. "I propose a toast," Le Goff said, "to Her Enlightened Ladyship, Duchess Anna Henrietta!"

Applause, cheers, and cries of "Long live Her Grace!" mingled with the clinking of glasses.

"A second toast," Tremblay said, standing up with glass in hand, "should be proposed, to our guest of honor visiting us from Redania—"

"—and to our no less important second guest of honor, Mr. Emiel Regis," finished Le Goff, anxious to fairly distribute the honor between the two guests.

Slightly less enthusiastically delivered cheers and applause mingled with the clinking of glasses, which remained just as enthusiastic.

More toasts were proposed, much wine was drunk, and the time eventually came to replenish the potables. As the new batch of wine was being carried to the head table, an odd smell tickled Regis's sensitive vampire nose.

The wine was served. Regis, who barely drank ordinary wine, didn't have his glass refilled, but he surreptitiously took a sniff of his neighbor's new glass of wine. It smelled inoffensive, but the unsettling smell was still wafting down to him from somewhere on the head table. Nobody was in a hurry to drink after the last round of toasts, so Regis decided to take the time to excuse himself and talk to Geralt.

He laid a hand on the witcher's shoulder, interrupting his conversation with Fringilla Vigo. Geralt turned around in surprise, and Fringilla looked across the table at Regis. Fringilla's cheeks were red.

"Could I have Geralt for just a moment, Madam Vigo?" Regis asked.

"As long as you give him back to me when you're done," she said as she toyed with one of the many pieces of silverware in her place setting.

He nodded and pulled Geralt to a discreet corner. "Something's off about the wine at the head table. I don't want to cause undue alarm, but perhaps someone's trying to bring the attempt on Syanna's life to a successful conclusion here?"

Geralt sighed and kept glancing back at Fringilla. "What's off about the wine?"

"It smells off," Regis said.

Geralt sighed again. "Do you want me to go and smell Syanna's glass? I'm a mutant, yes, but I think you still have a sharper sense of smell than I do."

Regis would have rolled his eyes if he didn't think it would look undignified. "If I understand you correctly, you'd prefer I look into this myself, because Madam Vigo is proving yet again to be a very interesting distraction."

That remark got Geralt's full attention. He scowled. "I'm trying to get her off my back, Regis. She knows Yen's away and she's trying to... never mind. I'm serious about you having a sharper sense of smell. If you can't identify it, I can't either. But if you'll at least try to identify it, I'll stand by near the head table in case you need me."

Regis nodded and the two of them wended their way to the vicinity of the head table. Fringilla followed them with her eyes.

Passing by the duchess on the way back to his seat, Regis took a deep breath and held it, trying to identify the odd smell hanging in the air. Anna Henrietta and Syanna were absorbed in exchanging kicks under the table and shuffling their wine glasses around; they did not notice Chamberlain Le Goff's nervous looks in their direction, nor Regis standing right behind them. To be fair, though, it was hard to notice a vampire who didn't want to be noticed.

It suddenly came to him: the wine smelled of something he used to stock in the back of his store once upon a time in Dillingen. He would discreetly research the background of customers who requested this particular tincture before he would be willing to sell it to them.

Someone in the room decided it was time to kick off a new round of toasts. "I would like to propose a toast to..."

Chamberlain Le Goff, seeing that Syanna had the glass intended for Anna Henrietta, stood up and opened his mouth to interrupt the toast. His pale face and the direction of his gaze did not escape Regis's notice. Regis swiftly picked up the glass that was the source of the smell. "Pardon me," he said smoothly to a surprised Syanna, "but I do want to drink to this toast, and I do not have my glass."

Le Goff's eyes snapped to Regis. "Mr. Regis, don't—" he cried out impulsively. Regis looked right into his horrified eyes as he drained half the glass in one gulp. "—drink that," Le Goff finished, his voice faltering as he realized what he'd said.

"Why ever not?" Regis said clearly, allowing himself to smile with just a little glimpse of his wine-reddened teeth showing through. He handed the glass with the remaining wine to Geralt, who had been observing everything silently and seen what Regis had seen, and even smelled what Regis had smelled. The banquet hall had grown quiet, and all eyes were trained on the head table. "You'll want to hand this glass to Captain de la Tour for safekeeping, I think," Regis said, "and have the contents tested."

The hall erupted into disarray. "'Pon my word!" "I swear on the heron!..."


	8. I give this heavy weight from off my head...

"Have mercy, Your Grace!" Le Goff cried in a trembling voice. "Have mercy!"

The duchess's face was set like flint. "The time for mercy is past," she said coldly. "If you resented the mercy that I showed to someone else, why should you obtain mercy yourself?"

Le Goff bowed his head and bit his lip. Tremblay and Tristan du Chemin stood on either side of him with blank faces. None of them looked any of the others in the eye as they faced the duchess for the pronouncement of their sentences. While the chamberlain still hoped to be saved by some miracle, the minister of justice and the young knight had already resigned themselves to the prospect of being hanged, drawn, and quartered.

There was a sudden commotion outside the door. Damien de la Tour quickly went to see what was going on. He returned and came back with Syanna, who had been attempting to bully her way past the guards into the courtroom. She immediately rushed to the foot of Anna Henrietta's elevated throne.

"Have mercy, Anarietta," Syanna said urgently, looking up at her sister.

Anna Henrietta rose from her seat. "What are you saying, Lady Sylvia Anna? These men have been found guilty of high treason. Tristan du Chemin plotted to murder you. Victor Tremblay and Sebastian Le Goff plotted to murder me." She paused to take a breath to steady her slightly quavering voice. "They have been afforded due process, and the law of the land is being followed. They shall receive the penalty prescribed by the law, which they so ardently respect. Yes," she said, fixing the guilty men with her gaze, "they respect it so much that they wished to rid the duchy of a ruler who supposedly flouted the law by not prosecuting her sister to the law's fullest extent."

Syanna did not look around at the men behind her. "Why did you have mercy on me then?" she asked. "When I had caused the deaths of four people in your duchy in trying to exact my revenge outside of the law?"

"Lady Sylvia Anna," the duchess said severely, "you are interrupting the proceedings."

"Your Grace, I beseech you; answer me," Syanna said, clasping her hands together and bringing them to her chest, a gesture that was unusual for her. "I shall not leave of my own accord otherwise."

The duchess laid a hand on the ornamental orb adorning the armrest of her throne. "This is very irregular, but I will allow you to speak. I will even allow myself to speak, so listen, all of you!" She looked around at everyone present in the courtroom. "The principle of proportional retributive justice is that the punishment must fit the crime. Is that not so, Victor Tremblay?"

The minister of justice nodded, his face ashen.

"In her youth," Anna Henrietta continued, addressing the court rather than Syanna, "Lady Sylvia Anna suffered a punishment vastly disproportionate to the so-called crimes that she had committed. She played a childish prank on an ambassador. In return, her parents—our parents—stripped her of her title and rights and exiled her." She quickly glanced down at Syanna's face; Syanna's expression was particularly stony, which meant that she was suppressing some strong emotion. "She suffered terrible abuse at the hands of those who brought her into exile. She had no hope of due process, no recourse to the law. Consequently, she took justice into her own hands by punishing those who had abused her. I do not deny that what she did was a crime. I thought it fair, however, that, since she had suffered from excessive punishment to begin with, leniency should be shown her."

At these words, Tremblay reflexively reached his hand up to fiddle with his chain of office, but he had already been stripped of the chain; his fingers grasped thin air. Anna Henrietta noticed this and sneered.

"I have since been informed by multiple people that my leniency was excessive. I am determined to not make the same mistake again. I shall strive to mete out punishments exactly proportionate to the crimes from now on," the duchess concluded. "Does that satisfy you, Lady Sylvia Anna?"

The two of them looked at each other silently for a time.

"Sister," Syanna said, "your heart has grown hard, but mine has grown soft. You have already refused my petition for a pardon for these men, so I ask that their sentences be commuted to banishment. We have not been harmed; there is no need to take a life for a life. I do not wish to be the cause of any more deaths."

Anna Henrietta said nothing. Syanna bowed her head and looked down at the steps of the throne.

"I see that you will not hear my plea concerning them. Be that as it may," Syanna said, finally turning to face Tremblay, Le Goff, and Tristan, "I forgive these men. And in forgiving, I hope to be forgiven."

They stared at her mutely. Syanna turned back to Anna Henrietta.

"I have one more petition on my own behalf," Syanna said. "No; more accurately, it is a declaration, for it is within my own power to do this. Listen well, Your Grace. You returned my title and birthright to me. True, they were wrongfully taken from me when I was exiled, and I did once deserve to have them given back to me. But when I had the four knights killed, I lost my right to them."

"No," the duchess interrupted, starting down the steps. "Stop, Syanna—"

"Let this court be witness to my words," Syanna stubbornly continued, raising her voice over Anna Henrietta's protests. "I hereby relinquish my title and my birthright. I am no longer the Lady Sylvia Anna, sister to the duchess of Toussaint. I have no right of inheritance to the ducal seat. Let it never be said again that Her Enlightened Ladyship the Duchess Anna Henrietta prizes her sister over the duchy of Toussaint."

* * *

"At least to the southern pass," Geralt said.

"No, Geralt, you don't have to accompany me anywhere," Regis said, leaning over the balustrade and looking out at the palace gardens with its blanket of freshly fallen snow glistening serenely in the bright moonlight. The moon was full again. "I'll fly out after midnight."

"If that's what you want," Geralt said. "You know, the duchess might just forget you're in the guest rooms if you don't go out of your way to look for her. You could stay here forever."

Regis laughed and shook his head. He had stayed at the palace for nearly two weeks at the invitation (so to speak) of the duchess, who had been extremely concerned for him after he had drunk the poisoned wine. To save his friend from being poked and prodded by a parade of court physicians, Geralt had convinced the duchess that Regis would be all right as he had spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder, and so Regis had taken advantage of the opportunity to simply rest in one place and enjoy Geralt's quite frequent visits. It was simple enough for Regis to avoid other vampires if he never strayed beyond a few chambers and rooms in the palace.

Now it was time to move on.

"It's been good to see you. Come to Vicovaro when you can," Regis said, "and send my regards to Lady Yennefer and your Cirilla when you see them."

"I will," Geralt said with a suppressed sigh. He was reluctant to let Regis go. It would be a quiet winter.

"I have one more person to see before I go," Regis said, turning to look at the towering facade of the palace, which seemed to reach into the sky to form a fairytale backdrop behind them. "I think I see her."

Geralt flinched.

"It's not Fringilla," Regis said quickly.

"Good," Geralt said, letting go of the sigh.

* * *

Syanna, who was now truly simply _Syanna_, paced back and forth along the length of the small balcony in front of her room. All of Toussaint would learn of her new status tomorrow. Tonight she wanted to be alone.

She suddenly stopped pacing, pulled her black woollen cloak tightly around herself, and looked up at the moon.

_Did you love me?_

"After being discarded like a piece of trash," she said softly, "to have someone worship the ground you walk on—who wouldn't want that? How could I not love you for how much I thought you loved me?

"In you I found security. In you I found warmth. In short, in you I found what I had been forcibly deprived of when I was a child."

_Why did you leave?_

"I needed love, but I also needed space.

"You would not have understood that.

"You loved not as humans love. Your passion frightened me. Your possessiveness scared me. You never knew that, did you? You never knew that, because I could not tell you. I was afraid to tell you.

"In the end, I feared that the fire of your love—if one could call what you had _love_—would consume me utterly. Yes, I feared you. So I left.

"If you could have been like Regis's cloak, Dettlaff, gently embracing me with your warmth, yet still allowing me to move freely, I would never have left you."

_How could you manipulate and use me?_

"I have no excuse for what I did, but I can tell you what I was thinking.

"After I left you, loneliness became my companion once again. And I thought about the ones who had left me with it, who had abused me and abandoned me.

"If my security has become dangerous to me, I thought, let it now threaten those who once threatened me. If I cannot enjoy the warmth of my fire, I thought, let it at least burn my enemies..."

_Did you not think of the consequences for me?_

"I did not think that you could be hurt. I did not think that you could _die_. I did not think... that your own blood brother—"

Syanna stifled a gasp as she finally noticed the vampire quietly waiting in the doorway of the balcony. She felt foolish at being caught talking to herself—or, rather, talking to Dettlaff as if he were still alive—but, more than that, she felt guilt and regret.

"Regis," she said, not daring to meet his eyes, "I am so, so sorry."

Regis gently lifted a finger to his lips. "Now, Syanna, don't speak at all, I beg you. Just let me talk to him." He joined Syanna on the balcony and looked up at the moon.

"I am sorry, brother, that I did not mourn you," Regis began. "I have simply been unable to grieve. So, let me eulogize you now: you had a noble heart and were capable of the most selfless deeds. I am alive and walking now because of you. Your blood, which flows in my veins, will not allow me to forget you; even if I could forget you, I would not want to.

"I am sorry that all my efforts to save you came to naught.

"I tried very hard, Dettlaff; believe me, I tried. I tried because you gave me more than my fair share of chances. You gave me a chance when we were striplings and I was a drunk fool. You gave me a chance when you found me as an atomized spatter on a pillar. You gave more of yourself than was necessary; certainly, you gave me more than I deserved.

"So, when my turn came to pay you back, I tried very hard to help you, but you would not accept my help. I gave you chance after chance after chance, but... you squandered them."

Regis looked down at his hand and meditatively twisted his ring around his finger. He looked back up at the moon.

"What a paradox you were, Dettlaff. When we were young you were the paragon of self-control among us, and you urged me to exercise self-control, to stop drinking, to stop abusing blood. It was a very limited understanding of self-control that we had then, for where was that self-control when you unleashed your anger on an entire city of people who had nothing to do with your personal vendetta?

"Don't excuse yourself by appealing to your unique gifts. You were not a mindless beast. You had some passions you were glad to rein in, and others that you simply refused to rein in. When I tried to teach you what I had learned from the Humanist, I saw very well that you were far from being unable to understand what I was telling you. You just did not wish to understand.

"You knew, in the end, that I was right.

"So, when you were lying there in Tesham Mutna at the mercy of the witcher, at my mercy, why didn't you just admit that I was right? If you had opened your mouth and asked to be spared, to be given just one more chance, I would have given it then and there.

"Why did you let me kill you?

"Did you think you had lost my love forever? Did you think that I could not or would not forgive you?

The moon looked down at Regis. The droplet-shaped icicles adorning the balustrade caught the silvery light. They shone like tears.

"You were wrong, brother.

"I forgive you."

* * *

Finally, Themis and I are alone again, in the darkness where her figure is outlined only by some mysterious bluish glow that seems to accompany her whenever she appears to me. The scales have never left her hand. The blindfold and sword are back in place on her person where they belong. Maybe this time I can have the scales. Maybe if I try asking another way.

"What do the scales say about Syanna?" I ask.

"Why do you ask?" Themis loves questioning my motives.

"I want to know—I want to do what's good. Please, give me the scales." Yes, Themis can tell me what the scales say, but I need to feel the heft of the scales in my hand myself, too. So I make my request, and I hope I've put it humbly enough.

Themis is silent for a while. I've offended her by asking again, perhaps. After an indeterminate amount of time, she speaks. "My scales only tell me what is just. They are still not yours to take." A sudden burst of light like St. Elmo's fire seems to flash from the scales. I take a step back. Themis takes a step towards me. "The sword, however..."

Somewhere, something falls into place. "If I can't have the scales," I say slowly, trying to carefully capture my realization in words before it flies away, "I don't want the sword."

Themis smiles.

* * *

Regis closed his eyes and sighed as he recalled the dream. He finally turned to Syanna, who had been observing him with her sad eyes throughout his monologue. She spoke.

"That morning, by the campfire, you said that you could not forgive me."

"I did, but I was wrong. I can, and I do."

They both contemplated the snow, the beautiful white mantle that lay on everything so softly and covered over every imperfection so perfectly and thoroughly.

**Author's Note:**

> The quality of mercy is not strain'd,  
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven  
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;  
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:  
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes  
The throned monarch better than his crown;  
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,  
The attribute to awe and majesty,  
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;  
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;  
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,  
It is an attribute to God himself;  
And earthly power doth then show likest God's  
When mercy seasons justice.   
—William Shakespeare, _The Merchant of Venice_, Act IV, Scene 1
> 
> Couple this passage with the meaning of Regis's name, and you have the reason for the title of this fic.


End file.
